To The Troubled Departed

The last time I talked to him he was animated and exuberant, we talked about what it was like being back in Oberlin and he even gave me a hug. The time before that he was doing lines in Jon's room, and I thought how scary this kid was, how there was a universe of something aberrant in his eyes. I had seen him around town a couple times this last month, but I always averted eye contact, not wanting really to say anything to him. Stuck in my little box. Do you ever wonder which side of the glass you're on?

Ian is dead, and I haven't really heard much about what happened other than the scattered bits and pieces that the rumor mill is churning out. He might have taken people with him. He might have taken anyone with him. What happened, what happens, how far does a life have to break...? Ian is dead, we used to party with that kid when we'd sneak out at night, we used to belong to the same secret society. He shot his brains out. He holed himself up with a rifle in a barn across the gas station and took pot shots at random people before he did it, though. He was beautiful, all eyelashes and lips, although you never wanted to be alone with him. There was some anger in there, some hatred that went deeper than you could follow. Ian is dead, he's just gone, just like that. Two weeks or so ago I saw him riding his bike in front of the gym as I ran inside....

And it makes me wonder which side of the glass I'm on.

Said The Elder Zosima.

My anger's all but done. This I believe fervently. All I've known is madness. (Can You forgive me for my absence?)

If the evil deeds of men sadden you too greatly and arouse in you an anger you cannot overcome and fill you with the desire to wreak veneance on the evil-doers -- fear this feeling most of all, and at once go and seek suffering for yourself because you too are responsible for the evil deeds of all men. Bear that ordeal and your desire for revenge will be quenched when you understand that you were guilty yourself for having failed to show the light to the wicked, as a man without sin could. For if you had done so, you would have lighted the path for the sinful, and the criminal might not have committed his crime. And even if you lighted his way but still did not manage to save the evil-doer, keep the faith , never doubt the power of the heavenly light, and have faith that if they are not saved now, they will be saved later. And if they are not saved later either, their children will be saved, for, although you yourself may be dead by then , the light you shed will remain. The righteous man passes away, but his light remains. Men are always saved, even if only after the death of the one who saves them. The human race does not accept its prophets and its prophets are slain, but men love their martyrs and honor those who have been slain.

What you do, do for the whole world, and work for its future.

For My Homie.

You're never far from grace.

It was just like this, only two years ago. Just like this and I was a month away from getting the flu really bad, and we would stay up til midnight anyway looking for the magic that I am still determined to believe in. You can't describe it to anyone, because who would believe you anyway? And there is no joy in the describing, or in the listening to. One must only experience it. Sometimes it catches me off guard and I remember so much, and I smile, I smile. For everything that might have been but won't be. That future is encased in amber, I'm sure of it. Hand on heart, eyes closed, happy. Full up with it. We are both invincible.

I earned my money on Saturday.

Sometimes

Take off your dress.

Let's stop seeing the world this way, shall we? Hey, she can tell that when you're talking to her you're doing your best to come across as sexy and mysterious. That you're wondering about how she's perceiving you, and not really actually listening to her. That you're wondering what she'll look like naked.

Transparent.

Once, I was with some people, and he actually told his girlfriend that he'd like to go watch a classmate do her strip routine at the bar she was working at. She was stripping to pay the bills as she went through school. He talked about how hot this chick was, right in front of his girlfriend, as though she were no more than a step or a post or some piece of furniture! He didn't notice, but said girlfriend shrank a couple of inches. Smaller smaller smaller until she couldn't be seen anymore, and she had no choice but to reinvent. What other option was there? Is there? Hey, men, be excellent.

Sometimes I think that I am Valerie Solanas. It's a struggle for me, to stop my thoughts from being sexist. Breathe in, breathe out. The Y is not just a broken X. The Y is not just a broken X. Repeat it to yourself until you believe it.

!

Favorite picture from this weekend.

On Why A Clockwork Orange Is The Worst Movie At The Video Store.

So we're in the video store agonizing over which movie to rent because none of them look good, when the two of them spot A Clockwork Orange. I hate this movie. Actually that's an understatement. I don't call it a film because I don't think it deserves even this simple credit. I don't believe in censorship, but if it were within my power I would go to each and every video store, library, Best Buy, etc, across this country and take every copy of the dreaded piece of refuse. I would create the largest bonfire known to man. I would burn them, burn them all, and congratulate myself for a job well done.

They're talking about how it's a classic, one of the greats.

"Can you explain to me why you think it's great?"

"Whudduya, it's cool, it just is."

"That scene when they sing Singin in the Rain."

"But what's the point?"

"It's a statement about society."

"And what's the statement?"

They saunter off and I think about how easily we are led. Listen, if you are a fan of A Clockwork Orange, if you think it to be one of the new classics, a real stinging commentary of our society, congratulations, you are an idiot.

I don't like Stanley Kubrick, obviously; I think his films are mostly meaningless and misogynistic. I'm not against seeing violence on screen, or rape, or torture, but for fucks sake, if you're going to be parading these emotionally upsetting topics on screen, have a reason to be doing so.

The main character in the movie is Alex. Now, Alex isn’t the kind of sat-upon, working-class anti-hero we would be right to expect from a movie of this degree of bleakness. No effort is made to explain his inner workings or to take apart his society. Indeed, there’s not much to take apart; both Alex and his society are smart-nose pop-art abstractions. Kubrick hasn’t created a future world in his imagination – he’s created a trendy décor. If we fall for the Kubrick line and say Alex is violent because “society offers him no alternative,” weep, sob, we’re just making excuses. Alex is violent because it is necessary for him to be violent in order for this movie to be entertaining in the way Kubrick intends. Alex has been made into a sadistic rapist not by society, not by his parents, not by the police state, not by centralization and not by creeping facism – but by the producer, director, and writer of this movie, Stanley Kubrick.

What is Kubrick up to here? Does he really want us to identify with the antisocial tilt of Alex’s psychopathic little life? In a world where society is criminal, of course, a good man must live outside the law. But that isn’t what Kubrick is saying, he actually seems to be implying something much simpler and more frightening: that in a world where society is criminal, the citizen might as well be criminal, too. Although, assigning either of these overarching meanings to the movie presupposes that the audience has been given any tangible idea of the society from which Alex has sprung, which is simply something that never happens. This is perhaps the crux of my problem with the movie: instead of a general feel for a dysfunctional society, we are given undeveloped caricatures; instead of hearing any real social commentary, we’re given platitudes. I felt as though Kubrick set up to make an incredibly deep and meaningful film, and then forgot to write in the depth and meaning. Even the main character never becomes anything more than a bored and petulant child. Symbolism is hollow when there is no greater reason for it to exist than as shock value, or to be weird, or different.

As we drove home I realized that my opinion made me the odd man out in the car. Then I remembered that I was also the only one with a valid driver's license and who doesn't have to take meds every day as prescribed by their psychologist, and I felt a lot better.

Does that make me evil?

hey look no.

Welcome to the new face of

um..

well, my website.

www.oberlin.net/~emilygrace

i was trying to think of something flashy to say. 'cause i know yall are like crows looking for that shiny shit.

Perhaps.

Just drink him in folks.


I think about having to go to that office every day and I feel so immensely sad, for everyone involved. For how absolutely, pathetically out of control fuller is. She is the living dead. For how broken Anne and I became. And for how that experience might damage us in the future.

Everything has turned out for the best and I've learned a very valuable lesson about the value of stability; what is and isn't worth losing your sanity over. Money is the reason that I stayed there so long. It's crazy to me how we have structured our way of thinking to place the most importance on the least tangible, least meaningful of all things.

Sometimes when I'm editing peoples' portraits and I have to do close eye work, I can see myself holding the camera in the reflection in the pupil of their eye. Right in between the catchlights. That's a pretty cool thing to think about. They're sending out their headshots to who knows where, and I'm tagging along for the ride!

Choosing money over happiness is like taking out a mortgage on your future self. The belief that you will find the spot where you're happy at some point off in the distance. Don't forget, emily. I think that you have to be very selfish in order to really be happy. You can be selfish without being malignant. Think of Rugby.

Portrait of a Psycho Killer.

Wish there was a way to print this one.

Give me sunshine, make me happy.

365 days and what does it signify? We had nearly four of those, and awhile back I gave up trying to take anything overt from it. To a lesser degree I've been wondering if that's the stance to take about life as well. Are there lessons we should be picking up along the way? A bunch of stuff that happens. Some people will be nice to you. Some people will fascinate you. Some will be awful, but you get on with it. There is a core somewhere in all that mass of carbon and water that no amount of derivation or deviation will obfuscate. Nobody has the answer. But, I stopped believing even that there is a question.

Philosophy, dogma, all the arguments that go in circles, in this wild struggle for existence we fill our heads with so many facts, so much information! We want to keep our place. This society teeming with facts. Perhaps isolation has caused me to become feeble-minded, but I hold to the belief that all anybody is really looking for is to be treated well, loved even, cared about. It sounds easy, but this is something that humans are ridiculously terrible at. Our spouse wants to be loved, yes, but we want to be loved too, and we don't want to be the first one to display our affection, lest we appear weak or needy or clingy or whatever label you choose to give it. Or maybe we're wrong about the whole thing and we can't bear to suffer the rejection that entails. Or we can't even love ourselves, so how could we imagine that anyone else on the planet might be capable of such a thing?

Well, you're through it then. 365 days and so incredibly much has changed. It's hardly perfect and the weird thing is that there's nobody to ask, "what's wrong?" No one who would pick that up. Funny what we take for granted. And what we get used to.

"Life is the slow trek to recover, through the detour of art, the one or two images in the presence of which, our hearts first opened." Every time I hear that quote I think about that old black lab in Prescott. Ranger. There are no regrets.

Vperyod!

Stormy Day on Lake Erie.