Hey, I just found this.

It's the kind of bad writing I love to read:

JUNE 2005
Through my bloodshot eyes I tried to decide whether the hair on the back of his head was freshly showered or oily. I don't really know if it would have changed my opinion of him, either seemed plausible. His car adhered to the strictly road. Maybe it was the manual transmission but it felt like no matter how he drove or how much he attempted to show off the car was glued to the road like a play-car attraction at a fair. The kind you can drive but whose actual course is determined by a guardrail underneath the car that prevents it from going more than two inches wayward in either direction. I wasn't hung over but every bump felt like a mountain and I swear I could feel the earth shake when he jiggled the transmission. It was a nervous habit of his. He once told me I made him nervous, though I couldn't figure out why. I didn't think anything about me was intimidating but people are strange like that and I'm sure it made sense to him the way elephants are terrified of mice.
We drove past all the places we had been the night before. The coffee shop, the park, the show venue, every thing looked different in the daylight. They were just places, artificial physical distinctions composed of mortar, brick, and a few electrical wires. I thought it funny how people could attach so much meaning to things that didn't really exist. Damn it. I had forgotten my sunglasses at the apartment and knew immediately that it would be weeks or possibly months before I saw them again.

proof that nothing gets me posting faster than a paper due

2/9/07

The room was empty when I got there.
Okay, it wasn't really empty; there were counters, and pastry displays, and formica structures, and employees, and maybe even a customer or two, but walking in it felt as if the room had been empty, as if I had missed the party and there was nothing left but empty beer bottles and misplaced cigarette butts.
Walking into that room felt like walking into the vaccuum that had coated my day, a natural consequence of the supernova that was the night before.
The party--the house was just so: strategically placed reproductions of post-modern art. Who the fuck knows what post-modernism means anyway and isn't it a contradiction?
The screened-in porch moaned under the weight of all that intellect and the black turtle-neck sweaters crowded in front of the door like they were waiting for the band to take the stage.
The contempt and power struggle was thick. If literary criticism had a smell it would be the sickly-sweet combination of pot, clove cigarettes, and trendy cheap beer.
I can spot that PBR logo from a mile away.
The once individual cells multiplied like a cancer, feeding on itself, getting louder and louder until words failed and gestures replaced speech as the means of communication.
Man, there's no gesture, no hand movement, that can demonstrate "hermeneutics"
Like the house was, now after the guests had gone, the bottles had been recycled, and the artwork had been adjusted, empty: this room felt like it had always been empty.
No matter how many people filtered in and out of its doors, no matter how many conversations I had engaged in, nothing severd to cleanse me of the feeling that I was imposing myself, and my presence alone meant I was trying too hard.

A Valentine's Day Ode to Rock 'n Roll

Communication Breakdown:
" I don't know what it is that I like about you but I like it a lot "
--Robert Plant's voice trails down the key of E like a siren wailing down a busy street on the way to a structural breakdown
--physical breakdown
--fire.
" Let me stand next to your fire " so that I can get some of that satisfaction
--'Cause I try and I try and I remember the moment I understood "Rock 'n Roll" I was sitting in the back seat of my mom's mini-van like any good suburbanite peeling back the layers of flesh on my cuticles, out of boredom or the lazy desire to taste blood I couldn't tell you, but Sympathy For the Devil was playing on the radio, a song that had passively made its way into my musical vocabulary when I heard it
--two guitars screaming at each other
--ever since I've been trying to get that satisfaction and ever since it just won't come
--but "Don't you love her madly?"
--"Don't you need her madly?"
-- I do.

More absurd rambings from the archives

JUNE 2005
The seam that ran across my hairline opened the other night. It was the funniest thing. I was just sitting there, watching a show on the things most likely to kill you weighing under 1 l lb and it started. First it felt like a something tickle right where the hair started at the very back of my neck. About the part where they started talking about those deadly sea snails that live in Australia, you know those things are amazing, they're so small! Some less than an inch, they're equipped with this harpoon-type tooth that feels like a prick until the venom rushes into your bloodstream and paralyzes you, well anyway it started at the back of my neck. Soon the itch turned into a flap. An actual flap! I could feel the opening but I didn't pay much attention to it, I mean I didn't think it was skin. There was no blood, not sticky at all just a flap. Besides, they started talking about Australian box jellyfish--those things are crazy! You know jellyfish don't even have brains? or real organs to speak of? Well right I had this flap of skin, and before I knew it I started hearing this noise like the sound a seam ripper makes if you were to work meticulously. I looked around but couldn't figure out where it was coming from, but I didn't get up because I wanted to wait for commercials. It was around the black widow segment where the sound started to get louder and the tickle turned to an itch. I would have gone to the mirror then but this infomercial came on about one of those pots especially for making pasta so that you don't have to strain it. Pure genius. Fitzi jumped on the bed and knocked the remote control over and set it to mute. So I bent down to get it and the top part of my head fell off. Not the skull or brain or anything, just the fleshy part. I thought I should probably get a hat or something so I went on the Internet to order one online. I opened my browser and came to the msn home page. It had this really interesting blip about Paris Hilton, she always wears the most scandalous clothing. So I clicked on it to see what crazy thing she was doing now and I got a whole page about celebrity gossip. Just then I heard a soft tapping noise, I looked around but then remembered that sometimes my Elvis clock ticks really loud. That whole retro thing got really trendy so I thought an Elvis clock would be a nice touch. Then I found a fascinating page that said that nick and Jessica were on the rocks, honestly I don't know how he deals with her, I don’t care how cute she is. The ticks kept on going while I listened to MTV internet radio. Britney came on. You know she’s my favorite so I had to dance. I stood up and did my best to recreate the moves I saw in that video when it came clean off. The top part of my skull flew across the room making a dull thud against the wall. I went over to pick it up but my brain flopped out on the floor onto this part of the carpet where Fitzi had made a mess earlier so I didn't bother picking it up. It was gross and squishy anyway. So I picked up my skull and super-glued it back on. It comes off every now and then but I always keep a tube of glue handy. I bought a wig the other day. It's really cute. Plus, now it’s easier to style because I can see the back of my head and I think I kind of look like Britney in it. Lots of people have told me that the new wig looks really good so I’m thinking I’ll buy another one in red, just in case I’m in a Lindsey Lohan kinda mood. When I think about it, that whole thing did a lot for my look, and my social life too. I’m so much hotter than I used to be, and I’m even going out Saturday. I drool occasionally but that's okay, the hair is totally worth it.

Creative Writing Neurosis

If you can get through this whole thing without losing interest, I will be flattered.

FEBRUARY 2007
I was sitting in a room, maybe not so much a room but more like a place. I’ve always felt that between a room and a place was indifference and purpose. You may have a room for working, for instance, but that room is important to you and you’ve spent time decorating it and you bought that pillow and this lamp-shade and in some way this room reflects a part of you. What’s more, you probably don’t just work in this room that you describe to those who visit your home as “work room” or “office”. You’ve no doubt eaten in this room or paced around and drawn on brochures while talking on the phone in it. That’s hardly work. And no one has the kind of unnecessary discipline to only work in their “work room”. Anyway, that’s why it’s a room and not a place.
Places are used by many people and have little personal involvement or emotional investment and are in many, many, ways safer than any room.
I was sitting on a brown leather couch in this place facing a window and there were other people talking about things I had never heard of and the place was playing music I didn’t know and I was facing a window. Did I mention the window? It was large and took up most of the wall opposite me and I was facing it. I was thinking of all of the people I remembered recently and the people I thought of all the time even though they had no real or obvious place in my life and I was still facing the window. It was sunny outside and the sun was shining through the window wall and doing that thing the sun does when it shines in your eyes and obscures everything else from your vision.
Anyway the sun was doing its “sun thing” and reducing all the people and things in front of me having their unknowable conversations in front of me to these black slightly shifty silhouettes.
You know what I mean by slightly shifty? Like the way people move on security cameras versus the way they look in the movies? Like how in the movies there could be one camera, totally stationary, performing the same function and even at the same angle as a security camera, watching a person or people engage in perfectly natural movements yet some how if a security camera captures this the people seem shifty. Maybe it’s the quality of the film or maybe it’s because we’re culturally conditioned to believe in movies and believe that movements people make that are caught on film are good, intentional, and acceptable. But security cameras, perhaps stemming from the fact that security cameras exist to document events that are not supposed to happen, make whatever movements recorded seem unnatural (or excessively natural?), vulgar, and crude. “I could not possibly look like that,” we think, “I don’t move like that, I may tap my fingers or mess with my hair in a similar fashion,” we reflect self-consciously, “but I don’t look like that”.
Well one of the few things I know is that we do,
I do.
And what’s more, those black silhouettes that were actually real people who sat in front of me, tilting their heads and scratching their noses and performing all manner of reactions to corporeal existence and the physical world,
Those people did look like that.
Those people were shifting.

automatic writing

some automatic writing exercise I wrote first semester I find kind of pleasant, thanks Breton, or was it Bataille? oh fuck it here it is:

Trying to find the letter “b” on my ipod Bauhaus Bauhaus where are you i can’t seem to find anything to listen to but the need for some truth put to music is overwhelming i need a goal i need something greater than myself musically in order to see what i want to and will probably never become i should probably focus on driving but the words keep spinning around in my head the images and emotions that need to be validated in a stranger’s voice or the frequency made by metal strings on a wooden guitar coils magnets fret boards plastic picks that taste like peppermint green and flexible that burn easily once housed in conglomorate music shops with distasteful and pretentious employees in gray shirts made of artificial fibers Mars Music sanctuary to the economically challenged musician place to show off place to be judged place to fantasize metal specks on the 60’s reissue les paul is there anything more beautiful than that cherry sunburst finish? Is there anything more beautiful than a stratocaster backwards created for jimi hendrix but never played by him declined in favor of the unconventional paisley that defined him defined those around him defined a generation of well intentioned elitists with fabulous music at their disposal so much music music with a purpose music with pleasure hedonism marked by a half opened shirt and a cockeyed stare curly blonde hair that trademarks a sound oh such a sound such an interpretation of an entirely diffrent culture and era Robert Johnson to england why? And how? Southern delta to overgrown abbey? Tom Jones and Huckleberry Finn would never have run through grass together makes one think of a more universal truth perhaps in a definition of humanity but then the thought that things just are, nature is the same no purpose no order no underlying justifiable cause –cause and effect: the subordinate of possibility infinite possibility for an infinite universe the overlapping areas, the venn diagram of “stuff” accounting for what we call probablility but no one has figured it out. We are flawed we are robbed and handicapped by these fragile five senses of ours these delicate breakable senses that in themselves have limitations dictated by so-called nescessity nescessity for life and the propagation of the species Neitche’s Neitzche’s spelling is terrible Nietzche’s ideas the Dionysian the Apollonian the seemingly contradictory dualism in the art the purposelessness of art the distance between nature and science nature and humanity the epitome of humanity in the purposelessness of art.

recent letter i'm happy with

Dear Gordon Mathis,

I write to you not to affect decisions which have already been made, but merely to comment on the influence the Galloway School has had on my academic career and chosen life path by means of Dr. Kelley.

I recall, just previous to my interview with the Goizueta foundation during my senior year that you mentioned my teachers referring to me as “the quintessential Galloway student,” this was, and still is one of the highest compliments any teacher could every pay me, as during my highschool career, continuing on to my experiences in college, I try to reflect the Galloway ideals of proactive education and lifelong learning.

Also in my senior year, I applied to several colleges. When sending out college applications students were usually asked to send letters of recommendation, an evaluation from the perspective of those who knew us best, academically. Students generally chose those teachers who had the most impact on them, so naturally I chose Dr. Kelley. I am not sure I will ever know what was in that letter, but it seems to me that now, after having grown some small amount, I have been put in the position to return the favor.

Having said that I will begin my letter of commendation by borrowing from my teachers’ words and stating that Dr. Kelley is the quintessential Galloway teacher.

Taking Dr. Kelley’s class for the first time in the 10th grade I knew very little of what to expect. I had heard good things from various students, confirmed by the fact that Galloway alumni were constantly popping their heads through his door to say hello, a trend which did not diminish with time.

One of the first texts we analyzed in Dr. Kelley’s class was The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche. That day we spent an entire block period discussing only the first sentence, during which Dr. Kelley taught us about the Dionysian and Apollonian dialectic in art.

In a single class period I learned how to view art from an entirely new perspective: recognizing both the creator and audience in the work, (a method which I still use to impress my teachers). More importantly, however, this particular class opened my eyes to the possibilities and undeniable significance of literature. From that day on, everything my world literature teacher, Ms. Fell, had been teaching began to make sense. I could not believe all that could be said about a single sentence; I did not take this discovery lightly.

To say that Dr. Kelley made me want to write would be a trite but true statement. Perhaps then, it is better to say that if literature is my everything, I consider to have gained everything from this course.

As a comparative literature major I hope to pursue a career in academia and also, with any luck, publish a novel or two. Given my chosen life path, it is obvious the impact Dr. Kelley’s particular field of expertise bears on me and the craft I work most to perfect.
It is thus obvious that the following is of no little significance:

Dr. Kelley taught me the writing process.

As simple a skill as that may sound, reduced to so few words with such unattractive connotations, as an academic I hope to be in a perpetual state of composition, and as such always employing this method to the best of my ability.

Dr. Kelley taught me how to most effectively organize my work and structure my sentences with clarity as the main objective.

Dr. Kelley taught me that “Only difference signifies” a principle that is not only catchy, but essential in any kind of analysis, academic or otherwise. Through this method I know that identifying the meaning in any text requires one first to identify distinguishing factors, a delicate process of analysis and synthesis whose importance grows increasingly evident the more I read.

Because of Dr. Kelley I will always have an exercise, a literary callisthenic by which I may come closer to my ultimate goal of the metaphysical, elusive, “better writer”.
Because of Dr. Kelley I developed a continuing curiosity about literature and the motivation to really live what it means to be a life long learner.

The skills I learned from Dr. Kelley have allowed me to take my education into my own hands and, now in my college years, view school as an end unto itself and learn purely for the sake of learning.

I have recently taken a class concerned primarily with letters as a literary form. Bearing all that I have learned in mind I have written this with the firm notion that a letter, like art, is more often than not a self-fulfilling act.

Walter Benjamin, in The Task of the Translator states that we should look at the notion of art as alive with “an entirely unmetaphorical objectivity.” The act of writing a letter fulfills the desire to give life, that is, to materialize and make external the feelings that simply cannot be contained within us.

This notion expresses best the spirit of this letter; an attempt to manifest outside of my self what I cannot willingly nor ethically contain, namely the gratitude I feel towards Dr. Kelley and the firm belief that he is responsible for many things if not whatever quality led me to be “the quintessential Galloway student,” an attribute which I think would qualify one as the quintessential Galloway teacher.

Sincerely,





Amanda Morelli

love

We always talk about the importance of love, the prevalence of love, but what is it really? What is it that makes love so wonderful and how can we love in so many different ways and still just have one name for it? I think it is like an oval-esque Venn diagram. You have the main kinds of love, which are romantic, familial, and friendship, and I think they all overlap at the core. While they (and every other kind of love) each have their own independent lobe, they all come together at the very core. This highly shaded area of the Venn diagram of love is the only part that I think we can truly call love. It is the emotion that binds all of these seemingly different relationships together that we gave the name love. Love has as many connotations as it has spawned branches for precisely that reason. So now that I have identified "where it is" in relation to everything else, what is it? I think love is the equivocation if not elevation of someone else's well being with relation to your own. This feeling can be translated romantically into "true love," or in a family situation as in "I love my parents" but when it comes down to it, what really gives these emotions their validity is your general concern for the other person's well being. This explains why people can dwell in the un-shaded lobes of "love" and not really "love" the person, like the more common lust or adoration areas of the romantic lobe. This transition from adoration to love is what makes people want to stay together for years and years.
So why is love so important, then? I think because it speaks to the very core of what makes us human, which is our interaction with others. Someone placing your well being within the ranks or their own is the ultimate comfort and security. The truth is we are all connected. As corny and kum-ba-yah as that sounds we simply cannot and do not exist alone... ever. Since it is vital to our existence, our connections to each other must be very important. This is where love comes in. love is the ultimate reinforcement that we are all connected. Figuratively, it is like joining arms as opposed to joining hands. When you join hands you recognize you are connected but only by a few fingers and a palm. When you join arms however, you put both arms at the same level, joint to joint, joined at the shoulder producing an infinitely stronger bond and a sense of equality. This bond, this strength is the key to our psychological (and maybe physical) well being. Knowing that you have that particular bond to fall back on makes you infinitely stronger even if you never fall, and the bond is equally beneficial for the other person. It is so funny to think that simply by caring and no other effect do two people go from miserable and insecure to happy and functional.
Families are particularly important when talking about love because instead of a dual interaction there is a network of bonds that hold them together. This is kind of like ionic bonds and lattice structures, which are both very strong. I think it is this network, predominantly and not the biological bonds that hold families together and make family such an important part of life. This could be the reason the divorce rate in this society is so high. The lack of initial family life causes deficient bonding experience and therefore isolation and selfishness, but I digress...
The applications of this to Buddhist philosophy are also interesting. For example enlightenment is when you can feel equal love and compassion towards all beings. If love is a bond then to be enlightened is to not only recognize and understand your connection to all beings, but rather to transform that connection into a bond. This extends and forms the necessity for kindness towards all beings because though you may not understand your connection (rendering you enlightened) you know it exists. Thus to be enlightened is simply to truly understand what is already evident and so to conclude I think that very few things are more important or characteristic of humanity than love.

Art and Integrity

So I was chatting with some friends of the family who happened to be artists and we came upon this question: can art survive in a consumer-driven society? King Crimson guitarist, Robert Fripp once said something to the tune of "to make music as a way of making money is to be a businessman and not a musician" is this to say that monetary profit from art kills the art?
I don't think so, but I think that of the arts, music has suffered the most from this. I think that the essence of art lies in the purity of expression. The need to use the senses as a vehicle for transmitting some emotion is what sets art apart from sound or sight or reason and what makes art so important. Art is a reaffirmation of our humanity, a reminder that we can feel countless emotions, interpret, and reason. The transition from artist to medium to recipient and all of the little processes that happen in between give art its vitality and power. Thus, to corrupt the initial vision with thoughts of profit, to filter it through the grid of what will or will not sell decomposes its integrity.
This however cannot render it "art-less” because most likely retains some part of the value to the viewer/reader/listener, which is important, but a society like this one simply does not nurture the initial process. I think music is the most hurt because it's the easiest form of art to take in, it is so available and all you have to do is sit there to experience it. But going back to the corruption of art, if there are three elements (artist, medium, and appreciator) and two phases in between, where does the corruption of the initial phase come from, really? I think this lies in the implication of purpose. For example, when one creates art for an end like fame or money it kills the creative force. If you have to contemplate "what sold last time" or "what's in now" before picking up the paintbrush, you've immediately doomed the whole process because art is about honesty.
We live every day crafting a very particular image of ourselves, manipulating how we are perceived through modification of behavior. We establish what we want and then sculpt our images accordingly; monetary concerns in the initial part of the creative process achieve a similar effect. The artist (or should I say businessman) sculpts or paints according to what they think will make them famous or wealthy which is by definition devoid of integrity. That honesty, that expression through canvas is the physical manifestation of the core of the artist and thus their humanity. Take away the humanity of art and it is no longer art but rather an image as soulless as a tile floor.
But since we humans do not have sensitive integrity-detecting equipment we are still capable of appreciating "soul-less art." so, which is more important then? Perhaps neither. I know from experience that "soul-less" art can be meaningful and can still resonate within people, but as a musician and hopefully, one day a novelist, I must have faith that this kind of art can not have as deep an impact, on the whole as art that has maintained its integrity throughout the whole process.

i am so lazy with titles

so you want to be a rock star?
seems kind of an unusual starting place fro philosophical thought, but hey, who says louis xiv can't be thoughtful?
i figure the best place to start is always from most recent emotional experiences and that show was definetly it, besides, i think it has some merit...
what is it about musicians, the concert, and the musician-fan relationship?
perhaps this should be expanded to all art, considering that people simply have diffrent attatchments to diffrent mediums and mine happens to be music
thus, i restate: what is it about the artist and the affect the artist has on the art-appreciator?
why is it that we (i) find the art and it's meaning to us (me) inseperable from the actual person?
this is absurd, no?
i mean they just create, we apply our own interpretation and then poof! how does what it mean to us apply to them? they're just the messenger... so why can't i get this through my thick skull
these people are egotistical charasmatic muse-hogs who unknowingly hit people with sometimes paralyzing (almost 4 days now) 16-wheelers of emotion and i still put them on a pedastle
why is the musical (artistic) experience so personal and intense? and why is it that when the artist interacts with the listener, we think it has something to do with the listener and not the huge flirt of rockstar?
i suppose (not yet willing to admit) that it has something to do with the following mentality: if i was just that interesting/inspiring/attractive/"cool"/ insert positive synonym here enough they would dedicate some small portion of their art to me
this is crap, and i know it
but why can't we (i) draw the distinction between the two?
well i have decided that i have to be a part of the process to figure out something that affects me so deeply and is such massive part of what makes me ridiculous, and since this whole fan-artist situation has proved to be destructive (it's terribly depressing) i have vowed to be on the other end of it someday. thus i will rock, and rock hard.
i think this will be an effective way of truly understanding the dynamic, since i have so much experince on the other end
this was more of a theraputic rant than a means to an end, but whatever
thus i end with a quote
"They don't even know what it is to be a fan. Y'know? To truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts. "