Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Afterall, the overhead is low . . .
My roommate speaks French sometimes. Not to me (for the sake of not wasting his time), but to other people who speak French. Consequently, I often enjoy the company of Native Frenchmen and Women that he acquaints with. I have mastered a few phrases over the years: I am a pineapple, I am a little girl, I am tired, Sorry, I don't know, I don't speak French and the car is not working.
To mine and the rest of America's benefit, most of Kent's French friends speak English rather fluently. When they don't, I like to imagine I am a human thesaurus, spewing synonyms from the deepest wells of my mind. For this reason and many others, I was pleasantly surprised when Kent's French friend, Noemie, invited me to the Square Lake Music and Film Festival.
We met at 9:30 Saturday morning and biked approximately 35 miles from The Hub Bike Co-op to Square Lake outside of Stillwater. The event offered a 75% discount to bikers as incentive to take the scenic Gateway Trail that departs from the State Capital and lands right in the middle of cornfields and dude ranches. In short, a two day weekend excursion became the best rest and relaxation I've had all summer.
A Peace Coffee Bio-diesel Van kindly and deliberately delivered our camping equipment to a stranger's backyard. For the past seven years, this mini-fest has been ironicallly situated behind someone's house. A slight hill and wide ditch afford the perfect layout for a small stage and a storage barn displays short films periodically throughout the afternoon and evening.
Favorite Performers:
Ragassa
Black Blondie
Fort Wilson Riot
Happy Apple
Spaghetti Western String Co.
Favorite Short: "Flesh" by Victor Rukavina & Eric Carlson
Recent Purchase: Being John Malkovich . . . and so on . . .
To mine and the rest of America's benefit, most of Kent's French friends speak English rather fluently. When they don't, I like to imagine I am a human thesaurus, spewing synonyms from the deepest wells of my mind. For this reason and many others, I was pleasantly surprised when Kent's French friend, Noemie, invited me to the Square Lake Music and Film Festival.
We met at 9:30 Saturday morning and biked approximately 35 miles from The Hub Bike Co-op to Square Lake outside of Stillwater. The event offered a 75% discount to bikers as incentive to take the scenic Gateway Trail that departs from the State Capital and lands right in the middle of cornfields and dude ranches. In short, a two day weekend excursion became the best rest and relaxation I've had all summer.
A Peace Coffee Bio-diesel Van kindly and deliberately delivered our camping equipment to a stranger's backyard. For the past seven years, this mini-fest has been ironicallly situated behind someone's house. A slight hill and wide ditch afford the perfect layout for a small stage and a storage barn displays short films periodically throughout the afternoon and evening.
Favorite Performers:
Ragassa
Black Blondie
Fort Wilson Riot
Happy Apple
Spaghetti Western String Co.
Favorite Short: "Flesh" by Victor Rukavina & Eric Carlson
Recent Purchase: Being John Malkovich . . . and so on . . .
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Possibilities . . . Many
Everyday on my way to yoga I bike up 24th Street. Once I'm sure it is safe, I take a left on Colfax and continue down this residential street to "the parking lot where all things are possible." Here is a large empty space. A vacant parking lot seemingly deserted by mankind. Uneven cement and gravel left to bake and crack in the sun. From time to time, people decide to occupy the space. They play frisbee or rest against the vacuous red brick building at the lot's edge, but always with hesitance. You get the impression that something went terribly wrong long ago: environmental disrepair causing hazardous materials to leech up from the soil or a mass grave paved over and forgotten; to be rediscovered during archeological digs in the year 3029.
In "the parking lot where all things are possible" I get the same feeling I get in graveyards. Like I shouldn't be there by mandate of some higher moral authority despite my every inkling to celebrate the desolate and peaceful open space amid encroaching urbanity. And so, in the giant empty parking lot I bike in circles. I imagine what was, is and will be infinite positional, proprietary and developmental possibilities and how I play a role by simply two-wheeling through and thinking about it. My friend Morgan and I hope to sponsor a panda party there, but not sure how.
It could happen. After all, Cinderella is a crook. And I'm thinking about starting a comic because of this guy. More to come:
C.L.: Before there were cities, every human could see millions of stars every night, and no one had any idea what they were. The best guess people had was that different gods were spinning celestial spheres on a crazy axis. What do you think you would have thought stars were, if you lived so long ago that there was no science?
John Campbell: Most people didn’t think about that, they had to get a good night’s rest so they could kill something in the morning. Maybe some nice hunters let a guy with asthma stay behind in the cave and draw on the walls and think about stars, but you’d have to be a pretty lucky asthmatic guy for that to happen. What I am saying is sometimes someone with no marketable skills is allowed to draw silly pictures instead of having a real job. In this way, comics have worked the same throughout time.
In "the parking lot where all things are possible" I get the same feeling I get in graveyards. Like I shouldn't be there by mandate of some higher moral authority despite my every inkling to celebrate the desolate and peaceful open space amid encroaching urbanity. And so, in the giant empty parking lot I bike in circles. I imagine what was, is and will be infinite positional, proprietary and developmental possibilities and how I play a role by simply two-wheeling through and thinking about it. My friend Morgan and I hope to sponsor a panda party there, but not sure how.
It could happen. After all, Cinderella is a crook. And I'm thinking about starting a comic because of this guy. More to come:
C.L.: Before there were cities, every human could see millions of stars every night, and no one had any idea what they were. The best guess people had was that different gods were spinning celestial spheres on a crazy axis. What do you think you would have thought stars were, if you lived so long ago that there was no science?
John Campbell: Most people didn’t think about that, they had to get a good night’s rest so they could kill something in the morning. Maybe some nice hunters let a guy with asthma stay behind in the cave and draw on the walls and think about stars, but you’d have to be a pretty lucky asthmatic guy for that to happen. What I am saying is sometimes someone with no marketable skills is allowed to draw silly pictures instead of having a real job. In this way, comics have worked the same throughout time.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Don't take my word on this BUT . . .
you smell. It could just be the air or something in the room, I guess. Honestly, a blanket of stank happens to be hovering in and around your vicinity. I can't believe how long it's managed to hang in the air. You know that plastic bag from American Beauty? How it dances around in the wind? The odor is a lot like that, circulating between higher and lower pressure systems between your face and feet. I wonder if it's me. I vaguely remember putting on deodorant this morning, but that could have been a dream I had between snoozes. One of those dreams you get about morning rituals you could complete if only you were capable of pushing your body weight off the cozy mattress. Still, my intuition tells me you might have crapped your pants or stepped in dog shit. But don't take my word for it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
