Salle 17

Not so long ago, two paintings hung in a gallery. One, an austere Rembrandt in dark oils, featured a stately woman in black velvet. It was dark and Germanic, from the period before Van Gogh’s lucid canvas dreams. This painting was of the school that frequently featured only smoky black with small pinpricks of impossible white. Her fat fingers were coated in jewels, and she looked at the onlooker sternly, her neck covered with an impossibly thick lace collar.

Directly across the room hung a Mucha. A woman smoking languorously, sheer pastel fabric draped over not so subtle curves. Her hair had come undone, trailing all the way to the frame to finally curl around the cigarette brand name, proclaimed loudly in art nouveau lettering. A placard below stated that “Mucha had been the first to successfully objectify women for commercial purposes.” The curator had smiled at this small revenge while writing this in her curly handwriting. She did not much like studying Mucha in college, never felt comfortable around his large, lolling women, though she could not name why. The placard remained there, hanging like a red letter “A” below the print, the schoolgirl revenge long since forgotten by the now matronly curator.

The two paintings did not know why they had been placed in this room together, and viewed it with the unquestioning despondency of Greek tragedy. Once upon a time, a young curator, fresh in her power and confident in her double major in art history and women’s studies, had decided to hold an impossibly grandiose and awkwardly titled show, “The Many Roles of Women through the Ages”. This curator had long since been picked up by a private gallery in New York, and, since the show’s opening and closing, a number of Michaelangelo’s had been discovered by the museum. This lucky acquirement had become the main attraction. This room was now infrequently visited by the museums volunteer docents, on lunch or looking for a place to nap. The paintings had accepted their lot and were complacent during the day, but at night, vented their fury.

“Slut!” the dutch woman hissed, her peach jowls quivering.
The Mucha took a drag from her cigarette before blowing smoke into the frame of the other painting, making the old Rembrandt gag. The Mucha would not have admitted it, but she missed her old room, Gallery 4, with the Lautrec’s and Klimt’s. There had even been a lesser known Van Gogh, but he had been haughty and difficult to get along with. All the same, it had been good, all of them gathering together in the Absinthe bar after closing, discussing love and the humanity and above all, the revolution they were sure was coming any day.

The Rembrandt missed her old gallery as well. It had been quiet- a few baskets of fruit, a hunting dog, all serene in their own way, quiet and unassuming. They didn’t bother themselves with lofty ideals, they merely wanted to stun the onlooker into realization- realization at the rotting fruit, the snapping dogs, that this was a freshly captured moment, outside of time. It was a far higher calling then selling cigarettes, at any rate. The old marquis, who had long since been forgotten for anything more notable then being an Early Rembrandt, none the less thought of herself as following a higher calling, where art was Art, not a glorified advertisement. Though she had been but minor royalty in life, her current situation, surrounded by the banal and pedestrian, humiliated her.

Baroque Bees

A pitch we were given in class was to describe a Baroque church. This is based off of several churches designed by Bernini.
One point of Baroque art is the concept of simultaneous action, that everything around you is tumultuous and happening at once. It's overwhelming, chaotic, and sometimes (if you're not a huge fan of gilded fat baby angels) a little kitschy. It's by no means my favorite, but I think I've gained a new respect for baroque sensibility, and tried to capture it myself.


Baroque Bees

Gathering on the organ pipes
Hums a swarm of golden bees
Plaster angels climb the rafters
Frame fearful asymmetry

Men in theatre boxes watch
The marble, billowing in pools
Crushed velvet curtains frame the scene,
part like hushed lips, to reveal

Brooding Judas, Contre Postre,
Pondering his silvered palm
Just behind him, doubting Thomas
whose bronze lips are dripping psalms

humming, humming, low and soft,
the brimming bees are gathering
holy water still as honey,
sings so softly, voice unseen

organ hits a dissonance,
gathered bees take golden wing
plaster ceiling crackling, reveals
dripping honeycomb underneath

humming, humming, growing softer
organ pipes still their tone
absent bees gentle murmur
echoes in these pillar-bones.

Ode to a Fig

The closing of week two of my quarter in Rome. It's been an incredible experience so far, and the best is just the daily experience of living- getting lost in the expansive alleyways outside my door, hearing the lilt of Italian being spoken rapidly all around me, discovering doorways and arches in corners that I have passed by dozens of times and would have sworn held no secrets.
I also have quite a few pages in my notebook to show for it. this first assignment was to find something in the market place that we had no knowledge of, exchange it with someone, and then write about it entirely in metaphor. Thus:

Ode to a Fig
little leather mermaid purse:
crows feet growing from a bough.
Pensive as a walnut, your
cranial creases, furrowed brows
are hidden valleys dusted with sweet snow.
age smells sweet and sickly,
a sickle shape, a cell,
a shell ensnaring spiders eggs
where more old gnomes will grow.

Most of these are works in progress that I post as I go. With any luck, this blog could serve as a way of tracking my progress as a writer.
Second assignment: a riddle, a dyad and a triad.

loyal through the sun and rain
but fickle in the wind
I encircle your horizon once
you fill me to the brim. What am I?

I mean to rent a moped in order to further explore these alleys and the city.
Tomorrow, a flea market, and then to go out and attempt to do something I've been doing with some measure of success since I've arrived: Get lost. Ciao!

Buona Pasqua!

Not a real update; merely a few things to share.


'70 Million' by Hold Your Horses!


70 Million de Hold Your Horses !
Caricato da logreproduction. - Guarda gli ultimi video musicali selezionati

All Roads

Moved into the University Rome center yesterday afternoon after an adventure getting there from the airport with no directions. Incidentally, I'm a lot better at that great old game, "Guess what this gesture means", and my pidgin Italian is getting better.
Settling into my apartment. In the Piazza outside my window, I can hear the faint strains of what I'm almost certain is the theme from "The Godfather", although it could also be "Stairway to Heaven."
It hasn't quite struck me that I am actually, after months of preparation, in Rome. Turning down narrow cobbled streets, we literally stumble over Roman ruins, Medieval squares, or hidden fountains with marble statues. I live overlooking a plaza where, every morning at 4 am, they begin setting up the market for the next day, unloading trucks of fresh fruit and vegetables, cured meats and spices, fake purses, and fresh cut flowers. Normally, I prepare for travel manically, reading everything I can on the history and culture ahead of time in order to have some precedent, and idea of what I'm seeing. Due to finals and life getting in the way, I didn't have much time to research ahead, and I'm currently relying on what I remember from high school humanities classes, a surprising amount. So far, it's been an interesting and rewarding experience. Without expectations bred from careful research, I'm enjoying things at a slower pace. Things are surprising, enlightening.

This has been floating around in my head for the past week, far before I left it behind.

Symmetry and the Beatles

A (heavily edited) repost from an earlier essay I rewrote for a contest. Te

This is the farthest from home I’ve ever been. It is night, and we are on the roof of our hostel, watching the stars appear in a velvet sky over the Mediterranean Sea. I’m not just far away from home, from family and friends. I’ve left behind any trace of what I’ve used my entire life to define myself: the markers and keys I’ve used to map my position. I’m in uncharted territories, vast swathes of my own mind I’ve yet to explore. I haven’t slept much over the past few days, but a strange bubbling giddiness is keeping me wide awake. Across the Bosphorus, I can see the light slowly fading over the Asian shore of Istanbul.
A new Turkish friend has invited us up here to the roof. In the cafe, when he heard that we were from Seattle, his face had lit up. “We are cousins, then.” With no further explanation forthcoming, we followed him up the narrow spiral staircase.
A few days previously, I had flown alone to Barcelona. After spending the night on the airport floor, I took an early morning flight and arrived tired, hungry, and unwashed, but determined. It was my first time traveling completely alone, but I knew enough Spanish to get along, and I was not going to waste my first taste of independence. I sat down in a small café, determined to be an adult and hold it together. In this cozy sidewalk café, I was succeeding, until the familiar strains of “Yesterday” by the Beatles drifted on the Iberian breeze. Any dignity dissolved, and I retreated to a corner and bawled, a homesick teenager in over her head.
When we reach the roof, he is leaning over the rail, smoking. The stars are just beginning to appear. We watch in silence as he snuffs out his cigarette and explains to us that Seattle is not just another foreign city. Seattle and Istanbul are sisters. I smile politely, but I really don’t have any idea what he could mean. Seattle is the city I grew up in, the corners and cracks I explored when I was just discovering myself. In high school, I longed to be free of it in the same way one longs to be free of oneself.
He must have sensed my doubt, for he looked at me earnestly. “Seattle and Istanbul lie on the open ocean, but are protected by the sound. This harbor allows us the freedom of the open sea, but protects us from its brute strength.” He smiled knowingly in the dark, white teeth flashing against that indefinable black velvet sky. “We must be the same, with such hearts.” Asia, across the water, is now dark. I smile, but then wonder at my own doubt. Leaving Barcelona for Istanbul, I thought I would feel more out of place, but the opposite had happened. When I was walking down wide, sunny boulevards, or dodging crowds in towering spice markets, through it all was the ever-present smell of the sea, a comfort and memory.
He is humming a tune. When we ask him, he said it was a traditional Turkish song. Would we like him to sing it for us? We settle in with our warm cups of tea, and listen. He finishes, and there is a moment of silence. Then, with a knowing smile, he glances back at us. “Perhaps one you would know?” We nod. He clears his throat, and begins a refrain I learned too well. “Yesterday…” My own throat tightens. There is some mystery in the world, some symmetry, and some understanding. The last thing I expected to find on the other side of the world was family, friends, and home.

Only you can prevent forest fires (by putting out your damn cigarette)

In Portland this weekend, I was was walking with a friend on a search for Voodoo Donuts. A man started screaming at us after I failed to adequately return his compliment on our physique. He stalked us for about a block before returning to his post, presumably to educate more women. I was shaken; my friend was less so. We talked about it, and she's had it happen to her- she's even been chased down when she didn't respond. I was in Portland for only a a weekend, but it happened a few more times, never as dramatically as the first one.
Safely back home in Seattle, where no one talks to you or looks you in the eye for too long, I shared this story with a friend, who promptly lead me to this site on how to avoid this kind of situation. Borrowed from Katherine:

Preventing sexual assault: Tips guaranteed to work!

Please distribute this list. Put it up in your place of work, in your university’s library or wherever you think they might be read:

1. Don’t put drugs in people’s drinks in order to control their behavior.

2. When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!

3. If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them!

4. NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited.

5. If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DON’T ASSAULT THEM!

6. Remember, people go to laundry to do their laundry, do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.

7. USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.

8. Always be honest with people! Don’t pretend to be a caring friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault. Consider telling them you plan to assault them. If you don’t communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign that you do not plan to rape them.

9. Don’t forget: you can’t have sex with someone unless they are awake!

10. Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone “on accident” you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can blow it if you do.

The school I attend is not in the safest part of town; e-mail notifications of criminal incidents were a daily event, now reduced to weekly. People get assaulted- mugged, stabbed, one incident of pistol whipping- with regularity. And it's almost sad how quickly regularity is reduced to normalcy. How, when something happens with enough frequency, it becomes a mere fact of life.

With Such Hearts

The farthest I’ve ever been away from home. It is night. We are on the roof of the hostel, looking out over the Mediterranean sea, twinkling under a velvet sky. I have never been so far away from the things that I use to define myself with- the markers and keys I use to map my position. I’m in uncharted territories, vast terrains of my own mind I have yet to explore.
It is evening, and still cold, although it is close to May. Kay and I are holding warm small cups of tea, and listening.
His face lights up when he hears that we are from Seattle. Seattle is not just another foreign city. Seattle and Istanbul are sisters. I smile politely, but I really don’t have any idea what he’s on about. Seattle is the city I grew up in, the corners and cracks I explored when I was just discovering myself. I longed to be free of it in the same way one longs to be free of oneself.
He must have sensed my doubt, for he looked at me sharply, with all earnest. “Seattle and Istanbul lie on the open ocean, but are protected by the sound, small harbors that allow us the freedom of the open sea, but protect us from its brute strength. We must be the same, with such hearts.” He smiled knowingly in the dark, white teeth flashing against that undefinable black velvet sky.
I wondered at that. Are we defined by the land we grow up in? I know that my soul is probably imprinted with green pine and hemlock trees, laced with morning fog caught in the tree tops like sheep’s wool caught in branches. Is that why I felt so at home in Istanbul? Walking down wide, sunny boulevards, or dodging crowds in towering spice markets, through it all the smell of the sea was present, a comfort, a memory.

I’m only the first generation to live in Seattle. Before that, my mother lived in California, and my father on the East coast. Generations and generations before that, my ancestors sailed from all over Great Britain, and before that, Europe. Before that, ages and ages back, Africa. 20 years marks the time my genes have been imprinted with the image of Puget Sound at night, rocky shores and gray waters that feel like a part of me more integral than fingerprints or DNA. I know I place too much emphasis on blood, that we are truly freer then that.

Sometimes I think Americans suffer from a lack of a culture. But no time do I feel more American then when I am abroad.

Ten Cent Resurrection

Poem I wrote several months back, in November, when I started working as a Barista.

Foam libations-

I was put off by the waste, the obscenity of it.
To give meaning to the method, and perhaps to pass the time,
I picked a new God every weekday,

Tiamet on Tuesday and Artemis on Thursday,
A pitcher for the Muses and a drop for the dead.
Friday is Bacchus, raucous and wild.
White foam libations trickle down the drain.

Subservient Priestess, lady of the black apron,
who on bended knee asks, “Would you like room for cream?”
We who in our waste resemble most whom we waste for.
We who have always been willing
To trade our bread for circuses, to reject the world of the mundane
for a taste of the design.
__________________________


I think I'm going in a new direction with this blog. I'd like to start using this to post poetry, fiction, and, god help me, travel writing. It would make a nice place to have it all available (besides the overflowing messy file and stacked journals) and provide a nice extra push to write more if I'm not updating enough. Ah, imagined peer pressure from an audience of pixels, and whoever else happens to be reading this.

So, let's see how it goes from here on out. Ciao!