Waves, Avesw, Veswa, Eswav, Swave, Waves

“The birds sang their blank melody outside.”

“There is nothing staid, nothing
settled in this universe.
All is rippling, all is
dancing; all is quickness and triumph.”

“I would rather
be loved,
I would rather be famous
than follow perfection
through the sand.”

“I am this,
that
and the other.”

“Yes;
I will reduce you
to order.”

“I am rooted, but I flow.”

“I am not single and entire
as you are.
I have lived a thousand lives
already. Every day I unbury–
I dig up. I find relics
of myself in the sand that
women made thousands of years ago . . .”

“The weight of the world
is on our shoulders.
This is life.”

“I do not wish
to be a man who sits
for fifty years
on the same spot thinking
of his navel. I wish to be
harnessed to a cart, a vegetable cart
that rattles over the cobbles.”

“I have reached
the summit
of my desires.”

“I desired always
to stretch the night and
fill it fuller and fuller
with dreams.”

“There is no repetition for me.
Each day
is dangerous.”

“. . . we are extinct,
lost
in the abyss
of time,
in the
darkness.”

“We have destroyed
something by our
presence . . .
a world perhaps.”

“I, I, I.”

“But if there are no stories,
what end can there be,
or what beginning?”

“It is strange
how the dead leap out
on us at street corners,
or in dreams.”

“Life
is a dream
surely.”

“For this is
not one life;
nor do I always know
if I am man
or woman . . .
so strange is the contact
of one with another.”

“I said life had been imperfect,
an unfinished
phrase.”

“Life has destroyed me.”

“I begin now
to forget;
I begin to doubt the fixity
of tables, the reality of here
and now, to tap my knuckles smartly
upon the edges of apparently
solid objects and say, ‘Are you hard?’”

“It is strange
that we who are capable
of so much suffering,
should inflict
so much suffering.”

“It is death.
Death is the enemy.”

“The
waves
broke
on
the
shore.”

After I finished reading The Waves by Virginia Woolf, I realized that I needed to meditate more on passages, the construction of prose vs. poetry, and my visceral connection with the text. The above are some of my favorite passages that I thought could work by themselves and with more fragmentation (of lines, spacing, etc.). Also, it’s national poetry month . . .

May Virginia not roll over in her grave and topple my shore with waves of despair.

The Multi-Valenced Ann Arbor

I really had no other reason to be at this concert besides who I was sitting next to. He asked and I said yes. Luckily.

I glimpsed (more like studied; the room was silent and there was little else to do besides read since my voice tends to fill most spaces even at their largest) at the program and read, “Schumann: Dichterliebe.” Or I at least read Schumann and had a flashback to curly hair, beautiful professor, Deleuze event, and something about “the Refrain.” Lately, I’ve often forgot how amazing it is to be at the University of Michigan, not because it is amazing

(the Central Student Government silences and oppresses the very students it claims to represent)

but rather because there are a lot of opportunities for class and life and interests to have a real conversation. Namely, there are chances to take what I study and apply it to situations OR I can see what I study “in the real world,” which, as an English and Philosophy student, is sometimes difficult. Tucked behind/beside/near the Aut Bar (some could say a gay bar, family restaurant, or gay studies lab), the Kerrytown Concert Hall is one of the cutest venues I’ve been in and I absolutely love the cozy atmosphere. There is a facade of escape at such concerts, and for me the escape is heightened when the music performed isn’t from this century–it is my form of time travel.

(Since, as I’ve said, campus life is beyond unbearable, and this is coming from a person with almost all agent social identities, i.e., I identify as a white, cis-man, middle class, temporarily able-bodied person . . . . And to see not only the student government act atrociously but also other students stand behind such actions makes me (on the tame side of my emotions) want to never look at this campus again. And then when you pile on my queerness, I’m ready to evacuate immediately and call this campus, more or less, a war zone where a majority of my friends and my community remain unsafe on a daily basis. I would like to travel by any means necessary: time, space.)

As the Schumann started, I realized that I had analyzed (or been in the presence of an analysis of) this very piece’s first movement. For a Deleuze Interest Group event. How did a friend taking me to a concert send me spiralling into the philosophico-musical feels? I don’t know, but it happened.

The song melted away, much like when I oil pull in the morning–it starts of granular? or at least in some conglomeration of solid until it melts into a liquid and congeals in some sort of liquid mass of “detoxification and whitening”–and only solidified, perhaps, when I left the venue, walked away, into my night (a drag show). Chords unfinished continued to haunt me as a queen flashed the audience and I was left agasp not at perfectly sculpted breasts but at Schumann, lurking just behind me, never to be fully seen or taken in.

After a few more songs that helped to fill out the theme of “A Lovers’ Discourse” started, happened, and ended, the pianist/composer/friend-of-my-friend-on-the-left-of-me’s compositions began.

The first. Three Frank O’Hara poems. The second. One Sylvia Plath poem.

Now it is dangerous, as someone who “studies literature,” to attend such events. I have been trained to be a snob, although the training has been undertaken, more often than not, by myself. SO. I obviously have a lot of feels about these two songs.

I think what matters most to me, and to this blog, is not how I felt about the composition itself (which I loved by itself, however, I disliked the tenor singing the lyrics of the poetry since I felt there was a HUGE disconnect between form and content, which could be the point even though I doubt) but how I felt inside of someone’s interpretation of the poetry. Live music is not just something I listen to, but I become the music. It fills my nostrils, it enters my body, and fills, yes, “my soul.”

(My soul aches. I am aching because the Ann Arbor campus, a place I was taught and eventually learned to love in some real way, is parasitic to its most important inhabitants. It is a sad thing for an institution to remain passive when individual, one-off microaggressions happen. It is an unspeakable offense for an institution committed to “social justice and diversity” to enact the very crimes it condemns. The rampant racism, transphobia, ableism, homophobia, sexism is abhorrent. I can only hope the University and its various governing bodies take responses like this one to heart and take responsibility, acknowledge their accountability, and do things (not just say things) to rectify what they’ve done.)

And I hated the interpretation. Though it was refreshing to be in a conversation about poetry without using any words. It was like listening to the most beautiful one-sided debate, and I was the other team refusing to speak.

What is beautiful about this campus may be purely aesthetic. I can study, I can read, I can feel, and then I can go and see things enacted, performed, experimented with by those in or near my community.

Days like today I cling to the aesthetic, sit in my corner, and count the minutes I have left before I can take flight.

The Road

I decided to get in the car and drive.

It wasn’t a decision made after long brooding stares into my ceiling in the dead of night, just the opposite.

I woke up this morning to the sun rays nipping at my eyelashes and my body pulling me out of the bed and into the shower.

I smiled as I washed my face and turned on the morning radio to listen to some Oldies, it wasn’t a decision made after I reached

some climactic limit.

No, I think my limit was two months ago when my boss told me they were looking to cut people’s hours, which translated to me

packing up my stuff.

My limit was two months ago when my landlord got fed up with the me being overdue for the bulk of the lease.

When I got kicked out and moved back in with my parents.

This isn’t a decision at all, this is me getting into my car and driving.

I don’t know where and to whom I plan on going, but the road with its broken, bouncy potholes and me with my shattered, silly life

are perfect for each other.

Soulmates

Plopping onto his bed, she could feel the sting of the springs push into her back as she was on her plane.

He pushed his shoes off and flung them across the room, twisting her Old Navy flip-flops around her sturdy toes

He exhaled releasing the tight ball in his gut…it’s been there for days.

He flicked through his phone deleting every text, image, voicemail he could find with that damn red heart next to it.

Her hand became heavy, scabs drying over the waterfall of darkened bruises.

She cleared her throat and closed her eyes resting her head on the seat

Her thoughts becoming jumbled as a shot of pain rushes to her forehead…maybe it was the height of the plane.

“I hate her. I h-ay-tuh her.”

He lies in bed stewing in hate for her and for his eyes pooling in crystallized waves as he sucks in his body’s betrayal and

He searches for sleep.

She lies awake against her sleeping pill’s wishes, dry-eyed, empty, confused.

The Art of Art

The Art of Art

I have to find the time. When do I not have class? When am I not working? When do I not have any exams, essays, study groups, major events, panel discussions, semester project meetings, homework assignments, Pilates sessions, ballet classes, Italian lessons, bar nights, errands, parties, things to do, places to be, and people to meet? When will I be alone so that no eavesdropper can hear me speaking to my canvas and watch as it learns to speak to me? When will I be strong enough to lift a paintbrush and when will I be weak enough?

I have to find the thing. What will compel me to pick up a pencil, paintbrush, knife, marker, chalk, charcoal, pastels, spraypaint? What shall it be, the ephemeral gossamer that lands on my canvas, plucked from time and shaped and sculpted and suspended forevermore in mine own image? A glass of water, a bowl of fruit, a leaf, a vase, a ball? A kiss, a nightmare, a dream, a promise, a heartbreak?

I have to find the soul. What do I feel? What do I want to feel? Do I want the earnestness that permeates my very being to bleed onto the canvas, weigh it down with my Brobdingnagian sorrow? Or shall I buoy it instead and teach it how to fly? Will I set fire to it with rage or with equanimity? What shall I douse it with? Tenderness? Shall I caress it after?

I have to find the will. Do I have the motivation, inspiration, perspiration, dedication to make something? What do I make? How do I do it? Can I do it?

What is ‘it’?

Art (Un)Appreciation: The Most Under-appreciated Art Forms

In the commercial world, not all art is created equal.  Action films may not be the first thing one thinks of when one thinks of “Art” with a capital ‘A’, but they rake in enough money and have lasted through time long enough to have earned a spot as a filmic genre that isn’t leaving the mainstream any time soon.

On the other hand, other forms of art, such as slam poetry, may be older in form, but rake in little value as commercial commodities.  So for this week, I want to highlight a few areas of art that I think are underappreciated, under attended, and in many cases, underfunded.

Slam Poetry

Poetry is often viewed as a nebulous and exclusive art only created by people who speak a different language from the everyday.  But after viewing my first slam performance, my own perception of poetry changed.  Instead of viewing it as something flowery, abstract, and confusing, I saw it as something gritty and tangible and as close to the everyday as spoken words can be.  Ann Arbor and the University have loads of slam poetry competitions and many English Ph D students who would be happy to hear that someone is curious about their work.  If you have never considered slam poetry as something entertaining or even as something within your reach as a non-English major, watch this classic slam poetry performance by Taylor Mali on why he teaches.

Opera

Once praised as the highest form of theatrical and musical entertainment, opera is now only frequently by the old and classically trained set.  When a new book or movie comes out, wordsmiths are not flocking to turn it into an opera.  A musical, maybe, but never opera.  It’s understandable that opera falls into the same foreign language category as foreign films, but if you ever get a chance to experience opera in any language, I recommend that you take it.

For one, you will never hear live vocals that have the same range, control, and variation as opera singers.  To be classically trained means that a singer has definite musical chops.  With their arduous hours of classical training, opera singers are like the Navy SEALs of singing.  They have lived through hell week and they are constantly stretching the limits of human abilities on a daily basis.

If you think opera is a stuffy art form that doesn’t interest you, I recommend at least checking out some of the great arias (even if it’s just a sample on Youtube…like this one).  And FYI, an aria is any piece of operatic scoring with a vocalist who can be either accompanied or unaccompanied by instruments. Aria is melodic and sounds like music, while recitative is closer to spoken word.

Architecture

Granted, architecture is a very broad category and encompasses many artistic movements and geographic influences.  But people are affected by architects and architectural choices every day.  If you live in a house, you are affected by architecture.  If you go to work in any building, then you are guided through the building by architectural intentions. Luckily, Ann Arbor is full of architectural gems. From the Oxfordian Law School to the imposing Power Center, there are loads of revival styles that mesh together to create the world of the University of Michigan. Not to mention the Big House, which is not merely a sports beacon of the ‘leaders and best’ but is also a solid feat of architectural engineering.

Graffiti


An art that is centuries older than oil painting, cinema, and dub-step, graffiti is not only under-appreciated, in many cases it is condemned.

My question is: have city planners ever considered the thought ‘If you can’t beat ‘em, hire ‘em’? What a collaboration that would be.  Imagine if cities picked their best Graffiti artists to do rotating coverage of certain city surfaces.  Or even temporary coverage of places deemed for destruction. If you want to experience some great graffiti in A2, then check out Graffiti Alley.


Garden/Landscape Art


I wanted to take a Chinese Landscape class this semester, but it didn’t pan out.  I will be the first to say that I don’t know the first thing about landscape art or design, whether it be English, French, or Chinese.  However, the older I get and the more digitally involved I get, the more I want to disconnect from my electronics and reconnect with the outdoors.  Garden and landscape art is like wild woods that have been ordered and beautiful flowers that have been classically trained in ballet to look like a choreographed ensemble of color.

My mom has always been more of a gardener than me and I have been known to be an orchid killer.  But in terms of touchable, tangible, and accessible art, I think landscape and garden art has the most potential for public outreach and awareness.

Around Ann Arbor there are three spots that I love: the Matthei Botanical Gardens, Fairy Woods (a whimsical makeshift art installation created by those ages 3+), and the Wave Field.