Speak - It is Our Only Hope.

"I'm sorry but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business - I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.
We all want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful.
But we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men's souls -
has barricaded the world with hate;
has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.
We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in:
machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.
Our knowledge has made us cynical,
our cleverness hard and unkind.
We think too much and feel too little:
More than machinery we need humanity;
More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.
The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say "Do not despair".
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people , will return to the people and so long as men die [now] liberty will never perish. . .
Soldiers - don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you - who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.
Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate - only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers - don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty.
In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written
"the kingdom of God is within man "
- not one man, nor a group of men - but in all men - in you, the people.
You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.
Soldiers - in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
. . .
Look up! Look up! The clouds are lifting - the sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world. A kind new world where men will rise above their hate and brutality.
The soul of man has been given wings - and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow - into the light of hope - into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up. Look up."




Today, my grandmother on my father's side passed at the age of 80. all I've been able to do is think of her... wishing I could have been there. I swear, I was there. My heart never left the midwest because here it's just too cold......

For the ladies...

Anyone who knows me even in the slightest - understands the random connections I process in my head, which, while shaking it to the song 'Empty' by Metric - just feels... exactly as the lyrics read: 'Shake your head it's empty.' MOMENTS before this lyric was even expelled from the shit speakers of my ancient ipod doc, I had instinctively and rather euphorically - had begun swaying my head to and fro.
Then my brain shot to Amy Winehouse. Emily Haines, singer of Metric, and the 'Back to Black' songstress are very much one in the same. If the lyrics of songs of both were read over - and prolifically felt through the speakers...
you'd know what it is to be a mid-twenties mademoiselle in the disconnected world in which we currently struggle.
'What is our purpose, our objective?' we question. Should we try to love only one? Should we painstakingly pursue academics only to be thoroughly disappointed when our end result isn't 'the dream' - or we beat ourselves up if we couldn't make it the whole ride through - how can we find meaningful relationships in a world that publicizes and promotes 'friends with benefits?' Is it because they know we're all so stressed out they think etching more notches into our bedposts is going to help alleviate or allow us to accomplish anything?
What do us ladies who made the uneasy decision of wandering off to a city alone - working monotonous jobs one after the other, trying to just figure it out...
'There's no way out. The only way out is to give in.' (Metric, Empty)
Figure WHAT out, right? There's NOTHING, unless we give into SOMETHING. That something being?
Getting into a relationship you're not completely invested in because you're lonely? Go back to school to do some random career that supposedly is in high demand? (When in reality, every field is floundering... the informed fellow would know, the list of problems is all cause and effect - outsourcing, education is quite the mockery... really, need I elaborate any further?)
But ladies, what makes it easy to deal with the strife, the shitty jobs, the tugs at both ends from everyone telling you what they think you should do, what eases the pain?
'Love... is a losing game.' (Winehouse)
Real, understanding love - is in very rare form these days - it's like a little gem hidden in the rough, we try to find it with others who are either steps ahead, or behind us - and no matter how much we attempt to slow down or get on the ball to balance the situation - it fails and gets swept into a vortex, or black hole of discontentment.
Reader, you could be wondering by this point, 'What about alcohol?' That's a general stand in when 'love' isn't there... or by drinking we blindly believe we'll find this so called 'love.' Drinking was the coping mechanism for Winehouse - she was obviously torn between a new and old relationship - seemed as if the 'new' one supposed to be less detrimental, yet it goes to show that we can be easily pulled to the dark side of destruction.
Recently someone who follows Metric (presumably) more closely said Haines has been in the studio for a while, but nothing has been produced yet, and Miss Winehouse basically gave up - even on a stage with 20,000 surrounding her. (And, is no longer with us.)
In these lyrics, of these songstresses, one can easily recognize the Himalaya of confusion ALL young women are feeling, and for the media to plaster Winehouse as batshit mental is absurd.
Look deeper, America/World. BOTH genders of these generations are struggling with identity, and a large majority believe it will be a losing game.

SUNSHINE LOLLIPOPS AND RAINBOWS!

The last couple days have been SO magnificent it's just blowin' my mind.

+ lots of drawing, singing, and reading kurt vonnegut out loud (it amuses me so)
+++ amazing hang outs with new friends at various places
+ parading around town with the primate fiasco for a music video, packing random stores, getting down, playing with those 'bop it' kinda giant balloons, frolicking, getting little kids to dance, holding sarah's adorable baby girl, eating loaded nachos and quesadillas on the deck of the brewery and checkin' out the footage from the day with everyone, causin' a ruckus ;)

OKAY, I CAN'T EXPRESS IN WORDS HOW BEAUTIFUL TODAY WAS. MY BRAIN IS FRIED FROM HEAT, EXHAUSTION, and GENERAL AWESOMENESS. while I CURSE EVERYONE IN WASHINGTON FOR BEING IDIOTS, I am just plain pleased as pie.


(picture atop not finished! ees me n' mah babe-buhs i think about everyday!)


ps: there WAS lollipops. ba DUM-DUM-DUMS!

110 degrees of drivel.

my quick ms paint rendition of this oppressive heat.


not even hours after falling asleep last night, i awoke in a deep sweat. took my pillow downstairs to attempt sleeping in the living room, but sleeping on a hard floor doesn't make it any easier. giving up at 9am, i toted my computer with me to coffee up - but realized i was still sweating in said establishment, and there were too many people and too many stupid conversations to match --- stupid conversations need to be completely avoided in 100+ degree weather. already, your brain is curdling... it's kind of, for lack of better words, intolerable. being in a NICELY air conditioned bar right now? totally saving my butt from this poop weather.
already, at both places though, have been groups of at least five women - presumably in their mid-thirties or forties, out for drinks and conversation.
at the coffee shop with a friend earlier:
Me: Why was I made to be the sort of 'anti-girl?' why can't i sit in groups of women and be perfectly content?
Him: I think every girl says that.
Well, not THEM, apparently...
I try to take all the girl camaraderie I can withstand (which makes it sound negative, but really, there's a certain limitation to the amount taken in, for I am truly not accustom to it.
Is it that Sex and the City complex? is it a complex? Was it designed or at least molded somehow by the media?

As I half paid attention to a movie recently, it depicted a woman working amidst a 'squadron' of men (one of those generic sci-fi outerspace snoozies) and ALL OF A SUDDEN, there was another woman.
And they automatically, hated each other.

I try to give everyone a chance, but many times, I'm the one getting glares from ladies I don't even know. Having finally been the recipient of some definitely well overdue high self esteem, I don't tend to let the glares damper my mood, but they certainly attempt to seep into the neurons in my lobes.

why do i put so much thought into this anyways...
girls got to be pissy about SOMETHING 24/7, right? ....sure.

where's the man that's going to deal with the smart-ass... blergh.

so... about that weather...

EVERYONE, GET AN UMBRELLA HAT!
look at this fashionable man, he leads by example:

the furrows in the brows.

Adbusters, the magazine, is really - really insightful. An old friend from college used to have a subscription, and I'd sit in his dorm room and read them cover to cover. Recently, I unearthed an old copy from 2003 that was in the bottom of a stack of readables in a friends bathroom, and naturally, I took it and devoured it. A stand out article was written by a man who goes by the name Rob Wipond:

"I'm rolling down well-travelled tracks, chatting with an acquaintance about the weather, gardening, a TV show, a sports team. Or depositing money at the bank, or thinking about my errands. Life is unfolding by rote, pre-scripted by an invisible hand. Then suddenly, without warning, bang. An eruption.
I'm off the tracks, improvising in uncharted territory. That casual acquaintance is crying as she tells me about her recent emotional meltdown and inability to work. My bank teller softly confides that she has a softball-sized tumor on her kidney which she believes was caused by food additives and indoor pollution. My mailman asks, out of the blue, if I'm as disturbed by the prospect of war as he is.
All of a sudden I'm standing in the middle of the street, in an apartment hallway, or in a bank, sharing intense personal feelings and radical views on society with a near stranger.
It's like one of those moments when the thin illusion of the play is stripped away, and instead the actors are gaping straight into each other's own naked fears and longings.
Maybe regular folk talked this way in the streets and bars and shops in the days leading up to the French Revolution, or the American Civil War. Maybe we're starting to do it more today.
It seems that way.
But we often resist being yanked out of our collective social and psychological customs. The first one to break the established order always feels overly exposed. No one wants to spoil the party. And yet, doesn't it seem ever more difficult to avoid?
Take the potluck dinner I recently attended. Mid-way through the meal, someone joked about someone else's vegetarianism, and that led to mutually contemptuous exchange. The volatile energy quickly spread around the table. The ham roast from the factory hog farm; the soy loaf from the edge of the disappearing rainforest; the unfairly traded chocolate, coffee and sugar in the cake - each person's dish became implicated in everything from environmental ecocide and indigenous genocide to infanticide and slow suicide. Then the moral finger-pointing expanded to people's sweatshop clothes, corporate jobs, mutual funds, pollution contributions, techno-gadget fetishes, and holier-than-thou attitudes.
Like never before, I could see what a meager film was ordinarily insulating us from all of these painful facts about our society. Even when people tried to move the conversation to lighter topics, chats about football and the weather soon slipped again into ruminations about unfair concentrations of wealth and global climate chance. We had stepped through the door. For this night, at least, there was no going back.
It's ultimately futile to resist these shifts from the rote to the all-too-real. They're coming, as surely as reality itself is encroaching on our dreams and illusions. I've decided the disruptions are a good thing; in fact, I encourage them. It doesn't take much. All you really have to do is look and listen, and you'll see a person's deep struggle hinted at in the tone of voice, the body posture, the furrows in the brows and the furtive eyes. Eventually, inevitably, something will slip out. One of you will mention a tragedy in the news, a money crunch, a longing for a loving partner. It may seem ordinary or trivial, but if you watch closely, you'll begin to sense that a deep-seated desire to find another way of life is tentatively rearing its head. It's a fleeting chance to connect more profoundly, to re-open and re-shape the automatic social relations in NUMBED society.
To confront, together.
Nourishing and pursuing these shifts, I now see clearly why so many workplaces have to be so strict and mainstream media, so propagandistic. I understand why we need judges, police and soldiers to enforce the established rules of human relations.
IT'S BECAUSE SO MANY OF US ARE SO CLOSE - SO DESPERATELY CLOSE - TO ERUPTION."

summer breeze

I'm under a tree in the park.
Learning how to take my time...
inhale and exhale... slow down...

Had a job interview and broke
the fast with kozy and cora -
we agreed to start thinking up
actual talking topics/points,
and I'll probably end up
recording what was said like
minutes at a meeting.
gives me something to do, right?

but seriously, did anyone hear about that
florida kid who bludgeoned his parents
to death and then proceeded to have a party?

egos so inflated they aren't scared of adults + lack of discipline + the most IMPORTANT aspect of life is partying = youth of today(?)

i'm in an episode of charlie brown right now.

day three of unemployment, and everything is relatively okay. while some leads to new employment opportunities currently exist, interestingly enough, the worrywart isn't fretting too hard. instead, she pulled out her giant tablet and vine charcoal, set up a new little art space in the living room, has been actually using her camera... and doing a lot of coffee shop sitting (but sitting with pizza right now at sams letting some live jazz band to the right of me serenade my ears.)
reading the scott pilgrim books has finally compelled me to do a cartoon novel. figuring out the main characters and such at the moment, but theres also going to be a dash of archie to it, with a whole lotta geekdom.

top and bottom of page: photos recently taken.








(skyline flipped four different ways)



Moon art, deep within the forest.


this is where it gets silly:








ROAR!


and finally...


art space.

getting by with a little help from my friends.

"The more one dwells on oneself," says psychoanalyst Adam Phillips in his book Going Sane, "The more one is likely to suffer." He thinks people need encouragement to avoid excessive introspection."

Excerpt from my horoscope in the Advocate this past week. (KARYN, PICK UP THIS WEEKS BEFORE VALIANT BUS RIDE TO WORK!)

I can't even think in regards to myself anymore. I used to, and it was like it was recently picked from me - that little feather was plucked. The people around me are the most important, and should always feel loved... and I love them.

Being surrounded by such wonderful people and fabulous moments and actually riveting, thought filled, glorious situations and conversations - I barely even know how to 'have fun' on the internet anymore; it's such a bore.

Lately, I decide on a simple path for my day, and then let it curtail and fork paths at night, more recently in dark woods - and have been enjoying zen moments swimming in the water - succumbing to the stars and sounds around me.

My only need for technology at the moment is when it comes to chronicling these moments to hold onto. Even though the world is such a scary place, right now I am peaceful. I am happy. It really does baffle me when we all get askew - and then we bond together anew.

And just to throw in a little 'raunch' (lord help if any relatives actually read this, but I've recently declared sexual freedom) here's a page from my written journal, which I keep flipflopping on whether I should put a lot of it, if any, online.

July 1st.

Unbeknownest to mankind, I have a confession to make - I am officially single. Moreso importantly, have discovered myself sexually, and have taken ample steps of finally becoming comfortable with it. So far, the positives to living in this town are actually surpassing the grim attitude of the past.
Of course I considered myself single before, but mentally had the block of prudence getting in my way of enjoying ANYTHING (how people dealt with me prior to this breakthrough I'll never know)
Also, I can deal with men in the bedroom instead of feeling scared or threatened - literally pushing away fears and just going with whatever I AM comfortable with, and if they try to push my buttons or try to be forceful, I will give hell. It is my decision on what happens and if they play 'nice', I will play 'dirty.'
I spoke with an older man that looked like Jim Jarmusch last night on a balcony, persuaded him to come downstairs and outside, made out with him against the side of a building, and then had to bolt to catch up with a friend. as Veronica Corningstone would say (with my own personal twist) EMPOWER... EMPOWER...

-------------- fin. --------------


awesome artist and music video of the day:

abt/apt scribbles

an idle position
is never a good one.
it gives the mind
ample time to wander
where it goes?
nobody knows
it can gallop over yonder.
it's really quite sad,
believing it's so bad,
to think, wonder, and ponder -

we're programmed not to feel.

Beer update.

Spent the first half of my July 4th walking around town and conversing with a very nice gentleman named Umit who recently moved to Northampton from Turkey, we obtained some frosty frappucinos, went for a swim at the dock of Smith College, and then, feeling very exhausted and hungry, went to Veracruzana and had some delicious grilled chicken burritos while having funny moments in conversation where we (or he moreso) played charades at attempting to figure out English words he didn't know, like cane and steering wheel (he told me he was in the process of purchasing a Honda civic, to which I told him about how my Honda was stolen from my apartment complex back in New Britain while going to CCSU - thieves had fashioned a key that could open any model of Honda civics and swiped four from the complex.) Basically, I told him he should consider some sort of security for the vehicle, while he was trying to describe the one that, looks like cane that goes over your steering wheel!
Currently I am perched inside of Tullys for the sake of beer and internet, two things I don't have any of at the moment. (Well, a full beer is accompanying me NOW! not before.) It was completely vacant, but two people just came in. Nicely perfect and peaceful.
Having had very prolific conversations with both Umit and my roommate Ken, I feel empowered by the gift of gab. Ken apologized to me tonight for having 'been a jerk.' We have both been weirded out of our minds about each other for the majority of my stay in Randolph, but he finally admitted to me that he figured it out (in his head) that I reminded him of a girl he was in love with before (who apparently looks like me) and as he explained it, he figured out he was treating me like I was her, and I realized that was probably the reason why I was so petrified of him. I pretty much admitted to him all my phobias, fears, stress and physical exhaustion, we had very intense discussions about the current state of the world (because as I explained, I think internationally, unlike these weirdos in this country that act like cosmopolitanism is so evil. pfft. freaks.) He spoke to me about the retrograde of planets and some anecdotes about how college has pretty much always been about partying (even in the middle ages apparently?) and professors he had while at college in Alaska (who apparently, wrote a book, taught from it, and didn't change his stance even after 30 years. unbelievable and inconceivable how some people can't acknowledge change and adaptation?) My roommate was super apologetic and constantly saying sorry for being an asshole, but I simply said I really couldn't think of him that way, to which he said I was a sweetheart, had given me a beer, wanted to buy chinese food tonight, and said not to worry about the rent for a while... and that I could have the larger room that Mark had moved out of. So apparently... after being so stressed out for forever, things actually want to work out in my favor now? Hopefully this will deburden my head enough for creative focus. Like I said to Umit today, I'm just really tired of being tired. Totally.

The Quarter of a Century Experience...

... is now officially currently in the making. Also, a co-worker and I are going to attempt at creating a show based around phone call centers... Just have to make sure there's absolutely no tie into the actual company.

Creativity holiday weekend a go-go!