tvtv

go to smashingtelly.com for the longer length of the documentary.

slept the sweetest sleep last night with the window open and the most chilling air, finally, seeping in. woke to a candle still burning and music still playing. it smelt like the woods. a neighbor was burning a fire. perfection. went to blick's art store today. lauren, "the punk rock alternative" on america's next top model this season works there. put it this way, she definitely did not win and tyra would definitely be disappointed that a former contestant isn't listening to her advice. which brings me to tyra. according to chelsea lately, she is looking for another model to take her place as host. she wants to just show up for the elimination round. question: how is she acting as their coach/role model if she only shows up to hand out photographs? also, a few months ago i wrote about the casting i did for (what i was led to believe) her talk show. well, i never brought up weeks later when i was searching the net for internship possibilities, i stumbled upon a casting call announce for a new reality tv show. yes sir yes sir, that was what the whole interview process was that i was doing. tricky indeed. here is an article from the hollywood reporter (a bit dated, but none the less, it seems to be under the radar).

i'm always reading 7 books at once. if anything that is underexaggerated. usually nothing contemporary. author's style in today's era feels flat. the above memoir, the red leather diary, features a manhattan 1930's life. a current reflection of the past that i want to add to my reads. something about it feels charming. comes out april 8th.

von unwerth & fetherson collaboration

this is what the mingling of production and perception is about. this is how the world should be seen and heard.


also, today was top notch. i went to the met's panel discussion on fashion blogging featuring cathy horyn of nytimes, scott schuman aka the sartorialist and diane pernet of ashadedviewonfashion.com. i stood and spoke with a voice that flaunted the sound of my heartbeat (which was pounding in my chest). more on all that later. check out their blogs. the park was a sight to be seen and i could feel the start of summer falling through the day. now, more than ever, days have been jammed pack with receiving information from all accesses: magazine articles highlighted and placed into portfolios, news clippings torn loose, image heavy, music savvy, stories to write on, ambien finally delivering nights filled with dreams and eating all the treats my sister brings home (last night = best oreo filled vanilla & chocolate ice cream sandwich tonight = cherry chocolate chip). life tastes good.


kenneth bager "fragment one" - directed by ellen von unwerth

patrick park - life is a song

great song, great lyrics.

where i am at:

within what feels like no time at all (although under the reason of logic, it has been long lengths of teetering time), i have been moved beyond myself and have gone walking within change. change compromises former selves. however, i lose hold of none of them, because they always remain sealed in the container of my mind to open and draw upon for framing admirably in retrospection. but i do let them fall loose from the modern me. the change that classifies my current character spreads wide and pervades wherever i am placed. my image pushes heavy on the eyes of gazers and my appearance, both physical and psychological, is apparent. in presenting my persona, my personality is present and i personify the concepts my mind is changed by. the current nature setting inside me has caramelized my interior and in effect, has had me color my exterior differently. what has changed my self at this time? what is it that has contributed to the timing of myself? simple. i am no longer falling into the sea from which i stared down at. instead, i see a new skyline of visibility unclouded and cleared of the burdening thoughts that hung somberly before and yet, behind the window of my mind. filtering less, i enter the day differently even if the day is named the same as it was before. i approach my mondays as if they were strangers. "hello my name is chelsea. i feel as if i could know you, but i had been busy worrying about weight then and guarantee i grew distracted. today i am mindful of you though, and i am convinced we won't forget one another."

recently, i have been entirely overcome by the emotional reality of the change i am experiencing. i feel like i have stepped outside of a self and into myself and together, as one, we have gone walking inside an entirely new world. to think and care so significantly less frees up space in the mind and the eyes react by comprehending further ranges of reach. i am not being creative with my analysis. it is common knowledge: being less addicted to your disorder means you can begin living a life you, and you alone, forbad yourself entry to. now i am beginning to live and with that comes the eyes of youth, and the excitement over what is visualized. yet i continue forth with my age of mind, and with this i feel forever advantaged.

there is a world i feel i am destined to write

i am always fixated on procuring and then, securing energy within me. i reason that with it, the phenomenon of my desires depend only on the design i have dreamt them to live within and for. judging this rationale, i am confident that my dreams are not far from being reality--impassioned with vitality, i am capable of breathing life fully into my subjects of desire and the air they need to live within. however, focus must come quickly after, if not prior to successively capturing energy and swallowing it. for in order to digest and use my power effectively, i must be able to stop my mind to a certain degree and focus it figuratively. this struggle is ironic, finding that to be fixated on possessing energy, or fixated on anything at all, is to be actively involved in the effectualness of focus. perhaps at the point of this interaction, as energy and focus melt into one and make me move as a certain being, i immediately am overcome by joy and the recognition of achieving my dream state not only arrests me but overtakes me. as soon as i am possessed by focus, my focus retreats towards the attention of my new self. i become self-conscious in the sense that i neurotically want to secure my state of mind. and at that point in place, when i become most aware and nervous of myself, do i lose my self completely and fall from focus off the edge.




At the finish of every night, I find I have fallen further in love with the Manhattan I knew during the day before the darkness. It has been my easiest romance, and I trust that my feelings for it won’t ever escape me and know that I would be being silly to suspect that our relation could betray me.

seasons of the soul

between the tangible body and the thoughtful dream is the silence of the soul. on the edge of this transitional and transfiguring state, between daylight and darkness, shadows of the other open before us, within us and we are emptied into one, yet contained by contemplation in the other.

new york streets are a runway, staged seasonally. with fragile legs and hungry eyes we will eventually arrive at the end, make our two-faced pose--with everything within us and yet, toward nothing within--turn, and find our way back.

shopgirl

I walked by two speaking girls--at their side and then ahead of them. I heard them comment on me in my shoes. They are flat boots and, uhhhh, making all that noise as if heels. Oh and so poorly structured. I laughed after them at how insubstantial and insignificant their conversation was proving itself to be. Girls, always trying to believe they have walked in everyone's shoes.

up over head.

Instantly as the writer begins writing, he becomes a split subject. With the intention of designing text to materialize a mindful reality or the reality embedded in one’s imagination—the writer, unconsciously, becomes removed from the writing self who exists in the physical state and sense of reality. The only way the writer’s presence can be confirmed is by the superficiality of the paper product that has been inscribed with language—therefore acting as evidence of the writer having written his self into existence. However, what persona was speaking—what character fell from the mind and onto the page? The writer’s Self or Other? Is one real and one dreamt? By meditating over memory, time and existence, I illuminated the mystery of reality. My intention is not to provide an answer—for that would be one shade of truth—but to raise awareness toward truths: multiple eyes perceive a reality, fact is a fabrication of the mind’s memory, one dreams his self while he is his self and if one becomes his other he still is being his certain self. Remember when the eye shuts, reality exists without us and when the ear does not hear, not everyone stopped until we would listen. [for art festival]



words soon. after the leave and return of travels there is always multitudes of stimulus to select and write on or from. the experiences within the days moved like movies--once anything reaches my mind and instills a reaction, i see i have instantly begun translating it into a story. there have been conversations with such striking sentences that need to be isolated as individual quotes (and for that alone, i automatically feel more fulfilled; yet it confirms that quality companions of admiration should be ever present for producing art--life lived in love is a continuous surge to make a documentation of the couple's newly discovered reality). there has been impossible dreams dreamt at night that i have experienced after waking. there has been the willingness, readiness and interest to write on and from love--to become committed to my relationship with romance. i get overwhelmed and find that i wait until the carnival of life can steady itself and be processed, if possible.

the schematic wing

He lay resting in a lounge chair—palm trees shading the coconut shape of his face and field of hair that sprouted around his jaw line. Beer bottles accumulated around their open toes, as the increasing inebriation made their cheeks swell with vehemence and their lips pulsate with carnal curiosity. I walked passed him, and he brushed the bend of my leg faintly, as if to fool my reality. To tease my mindfulness into disarray and have me figure that by imagination I had dreamt him murmur the confidence of a masculine heart. “Where you walkin’ off to?” his friend tried to reel me back. I flirted. I always do. Always condescendingly, like a humorous amusement I've already appropriated. Just sighting you from behind. “Anything worth framing?” Nothing spectacular. “Feisty, are you?” I’m quick to the touch. The silence within staring surrounded me. “I like your eyes. I like the way they are painted.” I closed them purposefully so the lid and lashes would fall like the impression of a wing. I colored them last night. Sleep is the only activity that may have changed their shadow. “I don’t believe that sleep is the only thing you do between night and morning.” I dream wakefully and sleep without rest. “Well, you certainly use the best set of colors because I see no signs of stain.” Decoration is a scheme of embellishment. It helps furnish the fiction and sell the product as fact.

the two of us and them.

As I write this I remember myself there, as I saw us being. That is, me and the location. I try to separate the defining details of our relation to one another that have, not so ironically, defined us accordingly. The process that these words result from is the undertakings of a mind at work—something similar to a scientist’s practice but less obligated to the natural behavior of the observed. During my current retrospect, I begin to unravel our connection to one another and, in doing so, aim to pull loose the threads that have spun us around each other. They are flimsy, but somehow still, we remain entrapped in the network of its web and interconnected in the complexity of our condition. Do we lack the strength to fight for freedom? Or do we find comfort in the closeness that confines us like a strange sense of belonging to one another for the time being? Are these the reasons why we do not outwardly object to our positioning, or are there still others that we are not aware of within our selves?

I ascend by way of elevator to the fifth floor. I am emptied inside a pocket-house of congestion. I breathe for breaths that are momentarily not within me and proceed, faintly, into the office where I am one portrait amongst a collection of faces. To be a portrait, one must be studied. I notice them watching me. I see them searching over the lines that define me and within the substance I have developed into and thus, determines me. To be a face, one must only be seen on scene. A face is a face. I look at the multitudes of faces, like a performer that looks towards a faceless audience, but spend no time looking inside of their faces. Their personas pass through me. I cling to nothing.

I deliver my name to the assistant, as if it is not mine, as if I am only dropping it off to be used, devoured, digested. She calls someone that at that moment of experience I do not recognize by name. In this industry we work towards titles. Names are left at home where one [can] practices being a practical participant in the flow of natural life. The someone who was called and who I am supposedly there to see says something, and she ends the call and looks at me with new enlarged eyes of enlightenment.

She tells me a name. Then I realize she is talking to me and saying my name. I’ve almost forgotten myself—my name—who my name claims I am. As if how my name sounds and the type of person it suggests is different than how I feel, different than the person I feel I am. But there is no time to question this and decide on an answer. I look up into her eyes and become fixated on our positioning against and yet, towards, each other. Instantly, I take on the title of my name, the role of its character and become the person my name conceives I am. She looks at me differently. Her new behavior changes the air the space locks in. There is less pressure impacting the air and I feel lighter from this change. For the first time, I am aware of, I breathe. Your coat, a cappuccino, a glass of champagne? She asks. Let me take, let me give! She insists. I reject her royalties. I feel they are not mine to take or give, but the person’s she has decided I become and believed me to be. Even though that person is here, I am not entirely her and so I keep my distance. I have a secret sense of separation. I remain loyal to the longevity of this loneliness.

I say something to her. But I can’t quote it. The person inside my name was speaking, not the self behind it. Consequently, my memory can’t remember the exact words that were spoken. This often happens when it wasn’t oneself that was talking, but a stranger. A stranger within you. A other self that speaks through your mouth and falls into space and because it stands before you, makes the observer believe that it is you who is responsible for its existence. Is one? Is one responsible? Is one existing? Or are there many living all at once?

The woman I have come to meet enters from behind the wall and through a door. Everyone sharing the space freezes and becomes solid statues of ice sculptures. I do and am otherwise. Naturally I stand and move forward—trying not to break the silence everyone has suddenly become sustained to. Their unusual behavior is not challenged. The woman pretends to be unaware—as if the sudden stillness that has transpired is expected and common. I adapt to the change. I detect it is expected of me. Does this make me common, as well?

“At last,” she regards to me. “We have been waiting for your face.” I put my palm to my cheek and feel for my face. It is still there. From her words, I feared they had taken it. But since I am wearing it, it is still mine. I feel safe not being faceless.

A man sits staring inside the room. He, too, is one that has been waiting for my face. “The casting director told us about you,” she starts. “She told us everything about you.” Everything? She only saw my face. We exchanged a few words. Is that everything of me? “You know what that means?” That I was seen. “That eyes seek you.” My humor is not appreciated. “You are aware of yourself, aren’t you?” This isn’t a question. I do not answer. “That you are fortunate,” she continues. “Fortunate for this face of yours.” This. I grimace at her word choice. As if she assumes that “this” is one of my many faces for selection and subjection. “You are a piece of art,” he chimes in. “Minus all the excess that art is contrived with nowadays.” He steps closer towards me. “However, you do evoke emotion and display sentiment.” He sounds concerned. “The audience of the world can appreciate that and the industry could benefit from it. Empowering!” I feel like the conversation that is circulating revolves around someone else—someone I cannot see—someone I do not know—therefore, someone I cannot allow myself to judge. My silence speaks of my solitude. It mocks my segregation. And ironically in the process of, it sequesters their attention and they become pinned by my stillness that is impenetrable. I am affected by my evocative effect. “The casting director explained that you were intense. She said it wasn’t off putting, but elevating—that she was struck by it and fell towards you, as if the very nature of you made her vulnerable. She admitted to feeling that you were fake—not not real but unreal. And that this conception conveyed a contradiction—a curiosity that observers of you would feel challenged by and end up committed to. She was intimidated by your intensity. Do you believe her judgment of you to be true?” If it speaks truly of what she perceived, I would not claim it to be false. “You have not been direct with your answers. Why do they say nothing?” They must say something or you could not question them or our discourse would have ended. But as you can hear, it is still not over until one of us stops sensing what is being spoken. I don’t dismiss the truth others claim to discern. I only can question the accuracy of reality that affected the judgment of perception. The woman moves her mouth. She places a folder over her lips, so I cannot read her words. The man materializes her mutterings, “Yes, hips like an hourglass.” “Can’t be wasting time,” she responds, basically as a reaction to her own restated reaction of my body. “A bit shorter than we had surmised. But you wear heels, don’t you?” I nod. “And you can wear them all the time, can you not? I could. “What’s the smallest your waist has been?” 23 on a bad day, a real bad day. They are engaged with my answer. But I don’t enjoy bad days, so a 24. “Can you get it there again? Straighten out those curves. Because with that face of yours, we have immediate bookings. But you have to follow our rules and you have to play to the game.” To lose myself in such short time seems unnatural and unhealthy. I could but one shouldn’t. They speak without me. “Have you considered the screen?” I work in film. “Listen if you refuse the standards set by the modeling industry, there is still potential for you in other mediums. What we mean is have you thought of becoming an actress?” I haven’t thought to try and be different roles. “You should. We are giving you options to choose from. We believe in you.” My metamorphosis is encouraged. I am to be taken by transformation. I am to be no longer me behind my name, but she—a face in front of it, a face fashioned for pretense. They are convinced I contain a collection of characters. Yet, I cannot conceive of existing out of context of the one character that controls me.

As I write this I remember myself there, as I saw myself being. Do I believe my judgment of myself to be true? I believe not in the entirety of everything I see. I see a one-dimensional world until I shift my location in space and my placement positions my perspective differently. I see the other side of the door, the entrance or possibly it is the exit, the twin of your silhouette, your half’s partner. The light hits differently, the sides do not seem similar, nothing is the same. I cannot imagine myself loving anything that was not distinct. I do not maintain that there is a dramatic alteration to sight, but to sensations that slip out from beneath the door of one’s heart and spark stimulus to seep from the sponge of the mind and permeate the air like a fog before the eyes. The mind reacts differently depending upon the eye’s choice of sightings—just as the same structured story has multiple variations depending upon the ear that picks and chooses the words that are delivered from an outsider’s mouth, even though he always tells, says and shares the same thing in an unvarying order. Memory fictionalizes truth. Memory fabricates what was found. Memory crafts the art of experience explained only through the artist’s dependency on words and his existence in the world of language.

What can I make of the story I have told that involves scenes seen by sightings of a self that was sensationalized? I remember us there, that is me and the location. Then I remember us leaving the location—exiting the space of that foreign world and entering the space of a world stretched by the scars of streets. I left with others: a character I was controlled by, a character I was claimed to be and characters I was convinced I could be. I do not know whether I am always coming or leaving and when I do if I will exit into the same self as I entered as. I do know I have one face. I do know I am fortunate for this, one.

m.i.a.

I am here, and since, have been highly sentient of the sensitivity of others. And more specifically, how this sensitivity that is reflected in their actions and inactions (which is an action itself) burdens the mind of others and dulls the actions and reactions others have towards and of them. It becomes more necessary to write of these experienced events, rather than invent their invisibility. I must retell and reshape them, in order to breathe beauty into what looks and lives like a disaster. The other night in the midst of a scene, my interior speculation of it and persistence to concentrate and memorize its details—I became more aware of what I felt I was doing, or had to do. I was building up breaths, keeping them close, in order not to exhale. I felt like if I should, I may fall to the ground and breathe myself out. I am stronger and must deliberately try and hold myself secure. Otherwise, I would easily fall back within myself, imitate the sensitivity that others are inhibited and inhabited by and thus, be a torment to others and worse off, to myself. However, successive smiles feel faked (regardless of how seemingly convincing) when you are walking over cracked shells.

Many stories I frustratingly want to write and get outside of me. Time is the only thing I am lacking; finally and fortunately that and not imagination or stories. Miami has felt good and the moments have been what I have needed. From the return of old friends, estate sale extremes, Hot Chip, dancing on bars to Town&Country’s city articles, I have been inspirited. Days are spent spinning pass the sea. Nights spent dancing around songs that encourage the effects of ecstasy—making you feel how it feels to forget the self held within the limits of your body and move in ease. These things I dig.

letter as literature

Victoria,

Attached are three works that are still in the beginning stages of reverie. Calvino said that in each of his published products he changed—that he, as writer, perhaps wasn’t initially recognizable to the reader. Supposedly he wanted it this way; he wanted his texts to feel different, speak differently and show a different character from his selves that had broken through his mind and fallen on to the page. Of course those are my own words, but I can imagine that was how he reasoned. I wanted these three works to do something similar. I wanted to write something lighter—text that wasn’t as weighted and words that felt soft. Maybe recent authors I have been reading and the delicacy involved in their feminine voices influenced me. Maybe I wanted to think gently and sound gentle, as a woman is perceived to do. Regardless of what I wanted, I hope that the works speak to the reader and allows him/her to find something that is relatable. Lastly, the works deal less with the philosophy that is pulled loose from the knot of thought and more with trying to just be and to observe as is. The first work could develop into a lifetime scroll—fleeting but weighted reactions to emotions and/or conditions. The second piece came before the third and helped arouse visions for a longer scene of text.

I hope the words feel cool and leave one warm,
Chelsea Leigh Trescott

letter

Chelsea,

Your reverie is a compelling examination of the process of entering in and out of sleep, especially the dream state, and what this process means for your waking life. The epigraph by Borges that introduces your paper suggests that the falling into and emerging from sleep is also a metaphor for your writing, and this, of course, gives another dimension to your paper. You are very adept at recording and interrogating your sensations (almost Poe-like) and using different expressive (e.g. interior monologue/dialogue) modes within your poetic structure and tone of your essay. Your question, “Don’t you see yourself watching you?" in many ways points to precisely what you do in this piece.

Your metaphor of “the eye pierced by sight” is uncannily like Roland Barthes’ identification of an element which interests him in photographs (We are reading his work for class next week). He calls it the “punctum”—“sting, speck, cut.” He says: “A photograph’s punctum is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me).” You have also meditated on time and space in the context of moving between different levels of consciousness.

I have questioned a few of the words you’ve chosen. For example, does the eye experience the nerves that surface from fear? What are you conveying by referring to the “internalized city of dreams” as a “sewer”?

We can discuss this further in conference.

up when i shouldn't be

Oh, what an utter shamble. I sit here, on this plush sedated love chair that has flowering trees growing from each arm and leg. I put my legs up against the satin silks of my bed. What a stupendous sight! Everything is open to view: the champagne curtains pulled in like a dress for a fine figured female. Now the closet can be seen: a tower of pants reaching the ceiling. Absolutely ridiculous and even more so ludicrous that they do not even fit my legs, waist, or bumppppityyyybump. Robes are thrown across my desk chair and a collection of diaries wait to be packed for my travels. I always bring the diary I am writing in currently, a backup, and the multiple others that have already been completed. I like having them with me as a collection. I can back trace through them, highlight a specific musing or abstraction and then string together a brand new story. I have large sketchbooks filled with note cards of author’s quotes. The recordings and compilations help me be proactive with my faulty memory. Cut out roses, booklists, quotes, design layouts intermixed with literature, Susan Plumb, a handful of photo booth pictures, polaroids that look set designed, vintage fans, Victorian wrapping paper, ripped text, letters of discourse between Henry Miller and Anais Nin, women in cone shaped bras, art by Gustave Moreau and theatrical masks line my desk walls. It all feels so laughable at the moment. Things are everywhere! Portfolios, binders, folders reaching higher and higher up toward the ceiling. Tin boxes, hand lotions, burning candles on top of novels, a Buddha resting next to a dominatingly large Superior Starbucks Americano. I love this room. The peace that plays the same every night. I need to get it all in better order. More photography framing the walls in true fashion of New York apartment living. I want to start collecting snow globes. Less of these clothes I’m not wearing. More stuffed animals. TV hook-up so I can start laying low, falling into my bed with a bottle of red and watch some classics. I get so nostalgic before I go. I sit staring; trying to take in the last hours, and already become excited for my return. I am going to spruce this little cave up once I get back. Gotta pop multiple addies, and make it fresh. Pictures galore, candles at a constant drip, sound system on, dust out, organization and binding = Kinkos, putting the luggage cases to artistic use, words and images on tracing paper framed, getting rid of the bad and hauling in quality goods. This room is getting a makeover. I gotta’ clean up my act n’ cleanse the soul.

Figures Fall Loose

At night my body falls inside the warm cloak of yours. My shape attaches to the island of your body. My figure forms itself around the contours of your curves, so we can both feel most comfortable, as we lie drowsy with dreams. Your arms feel like wings, and underneath them I feel weightless. You fall asleep in mid-whisper, but I don’t rouse you to hear your sentence finish. I let you fall beneath the dream—let you remain enclosed behind the lids of darkness. The wind purrs against the blind’s backside, and its spine shivers in response. The night encourages the excess of this emotion. One could even say, the lack of light stimulates coquetry—activates our nerves to experiment in the laboratory of the bedroom which is specifically equipped with devices for probing. From the window, bodies that haven’t fallen for sleep peer in at our scene and notice us in fascination. Their eyes beat in a silent symphony similar to the heart. They can’t hear this pulsating musicality, of course; one would have to be deaf to experience how palpable the cords of desire are—how these notes are so heavy with substance that they can be felt. This motion of the heart mesmerizes the spying faces whose eyes are locked in loyalty to our all-encompassing romance. They sigh covetously, and become so transfixed on a life they are not living that they take no notice of how their rosebud lips have become pressed against the naked skin of the window. They looked starved and sad. The lights die out around the city that I can see. I am left to assume the night has erased every artifice that materializes during the day; and now wakeful eyes are left with nothing to see, only the secret universe that is spotted in the honeycomb of their mind. I feel like I have stepped out of my heart and have gone walking under the enormous sky. I follow my self as she goes wandering through the passage of where streets were once interlaced. Nothing signals that they were there, except for a map that exercises the same use as a postcard—nothing more than a reminder. But her feet continue moving, blindly, and her body moves forward, passing through the bodies that once gave shape and character to the streets of this colorless city. Although I am inside of her, I watch her as she lets her hand drop and dangle with an air of hope. I think for her, and she imagines that you will appear and weave your hand inside hers. She will not need to act surprised because she will be, truly. I imagine further, and you now have taken a lock of her hair and braiding it through your fingers, are able to whisper into her exposed ear, “Let us escape.” We all go running—all three of us. But this is impossible because you are stitched to my sheets, inside my bedroom and involved in the script of your dream, as I am somewhere wondering. Your lips imprint my lids and my lashes rise with erections. “I love you, Sleeping Beauty,” your voice breathes against the curtains of my eyes. Behind the curtains, I see your skin kissing my skin and picture you speaking to me as soft and faint as nonexistence. I make no moves, and lay there framed. I perform behind my curtains, a sleeping beauty. You fall back asleep believing that I had been safely sleeping. But then again, maybe you knew that I had been awake trying to record the final take of you and last scene of us. You’ll never tell me, and I’ll never ask, neither of us will know the truth. The sun rises from her sleep, and I slip out of bed and hurry outside to see if the streets still exist. They do, or so it appears, but I walk them anyway, turning my head ever so often, to see if they have disappeared and whether they have escaped me. Night arrives and occupies the city, so the streets leave and become busy elsewhere. I come back to my bed, and you are gone. The sheets are straightened and it looks as if you were never there, but I can feel you. A note sits where my head had been lying and it reads, “I don’t understand. You disappeared, and I waited.” Liquid washes over my eyes, and I can’t see where I am. I don’t understand either. I just knew one of us would eventually disappear, so I decided to escape first. This is my only reason, and I fall to sleep. The window-watchers are kept up, though. They are missing us.

The Night of March Tenth

This afternoon, in the café, I wrote from a weak mind, but empowered soul. Five shots of espresso left me lazy with haggard eyes. Most times nothing artificial will do the trick—and I find myself falling back on the reliable remedy of fresh air, pulsating streets, friendly foreigners and the triumphant discourse with males who, in mid-dialogue and mid-smile, remind me of how simple life was designed to be. Why do I avoid the hours when I confront these easily attainable external relations—why do I put off confronting the aids that will make my interior instantly feel rejuvenated? Is it for the sacrifice of happiness, so I have these words? Tonight I added a conversation with my mom, a home-cooked salmon filet and Calvino’s Invisible Cities to the mix, and I already feel more divine and determined. Yes, from the above, I sound like one irritatingly long fluctuating sigh. I came home and Allison told me to shut my insecurity up—that I sounded like every other banal female. She is right, and I knew this prior to. Maybe I continue just so I sound relatable or feel connected to the self-imposed constraints others suffer from? But that, too, is an aggravating explanation. My speech looks like a seesaw. The walls of my room look like the rosy cheeks of a lush and blushing female, heated by sensory pleasure or burning from embarrassment. I love when my room carries an angelic glow, like radiant cheeks just caressed and dusted with powered. It is the moments like these, with a candle burning, lights laced around the walls and the faint musical sounds stirring through the night when I wish I could remain drifting in my bedroom forever, and perhaps entertain a boy who has implicitly (though silently) decided to let himself be bored with me between the walls of my mystical world.

following fiction

Before I pass myself over to sleep, I enter the kitchen and in consideration of cleanliness, try and tidy the mess we call home. Two eggs rest in their carton amongst the yokes and cracked shells of their ancestors. I take the eggs out to place in the refrigerator, and one falls, dumping its yellow stain on the newly washed carpet. I was warned of this, and still I manage in my mindfulness to be mindless. I take a swig of wine—let it slosh against the walls of my mouth—and swallow. I need calmness, I need rest. Instead, I’m dragging the carpet through the halls, hiding it in the tub and letting the water run over it. I look myself over in the mirror; neck up, attention to my face, concentrate on my eyes. Perky lashes, wide and enormous emerald pools that have recently been looking less green and more gold. Rays of lucidity spreading to each rim. I know not what to make of it; the green felt gated, blocking my mind’s sight from view—the gold may push others in and into me. I fear. I fall to bed in a white mask. The product claims to perfect one’s appearance. I read further underneath ingredients: just a marketing tactic. It is hard to believe in anything these days, but I keep my faith. I’m wearing your shirt and press my nose down to take you in. It smells like spilt semen and duty-free cologne. Is that how you smell? I can’t remember. But something kept me around. I begin thinking about this, trying to remember a time, situate us there, so I can smell you. What’s the use? You aren’t here, and we aren’t there—all this back and forth is a depressant. I reach over to my drawer. A card sits on top of an already addressed envelope; the card is blank, not yet written, a statement of a void. It probably won’t get sent. You’ll probably never know I was thinking of writing you. I build up some salvia and swallow down a sleeping pill. I wonder if this makes you not trust me. All my pill popping that is—how I’m always entering and exiting a state of sleep and wakefulness. Do you not know where I am situated in reality—whether the me that you experience is real? Stop worrying. I don’t know either. Now I feel so awoken. I take another pill. Still awake. Place my hands over my eyes and promise not to remove them until I fall asleep, stop seeing black and catch sights of bright lighted dreams. I’m waiting—in bed with a white face wearing a semen-scented shirt.
March Tenth

past days.

How to describe the last half of this week?—other than by saying the experiences feel like faint sketches, almost tainted traces in time, that I must back peddle through, hoping my memory is structured well enough to yield significantly to truth. Why is it that I have come to rely so heavily on recording if I am to breathe life back into anything at all? How come memory is the only thing I have to remind me of how my days were cast? Perhaps the reconfiguring of time plays no purpose in the lives of others—I would not doubt that the thoughts, triumphs and plagues that I dedicate my time and purpose to, seem like torments and assignments to others. It is human nature to be paired with different desires, practices and attributes—and so we branch out and fall in clumps around those that participate as we do (the doctors, the mathematicians, the musicians and on). But my inner workings are the patterns to my work, and everyday I work fanatically to stitch my design and hope for beauty, art, style that is new and can be worn. Writers cannot be born over night, it is not something one just decides with a snap—they must constantly pursue work, decode the signs and symbols that encode their days and define their world, strengthen their voice. They fall asleep after finally surrendering to the fight of images and words that pervade their psyche and they wake ready to sit in front of a white washed world and begin breathing, from their inside out, the imaginings of an interior world they have created and that plays out behind the vague look that passerbys try to read into. Each and everyday, I go through the motions and partake in the movements that are asked of me and that I ask of me—but I cannot deny that I am partially and sometimes fully removed (a fault, I know), for I am constantly involved in another act that feels out of my control and discipline. I walk, and my world is narrated to me, a story begins, sentences stop and new ones pick up, but a version of the world is constantly being played out and formatted. After years of this behavior and finally accepting the pace at which my mind goes, I have decided, I must be a writer. It is believed that a writer is constantly absorbing details and drawing in energy; perhaps that is what I have been doing inside my interior for so many years.

On Thursday I had my interview with Harper’s Bazaar. The more you do these things (come face to face with people, underneath the roofs of the places and companies you dreamed of being so chosen, so fortunate, so achieved to be invited into) do you recognize that your world does not realign itself, that no secret and exclusive answer has been passed beneath the door for you and most of all, that you must avoid redesigning or studying yourself so specifically before entering into the situation. I remember the days where I would have bought a sharp new outfit and tried to plan a monologue to deliver, but now I have begun to catch on to the game—and so I show up and try my best to not perform at all. But perhaps, that is no secret either.

Inside the lobby, it is nighttime and the building seems pacified. Waterfalls drip down and the escalators and elevators make me feel like I am a special guest on the Jetson show, but present day less animated. I can’t believe I am finally here—after all the horror stories and declines from FIT to send their students on interview at Bazaar. This is better than Conde Naste, better than Vogue—yes. I spend a good ten minutes or more in the lobby, talking to one of the young guys on staff. He wants to write screenplays—and so, asks excitedly for all the inside scoop. I begin talking, and surprise myself at how much I seem or maybe just appear to know. Sometimes I really doubt myself, but there I am sharing secrets, telling him which companies may be best, what position to try for, websites that list jobs, accounts to register to. Somehow, during those moments, I was really able to convince myself that I knew what I was talking about. He gave me his contact, and assured me that my personality was dead on, to just keep the smile and I’d be fit for the interview.

I’m outside the glass doors, and everyone is watching me struggle to push through the door. In my bomber hat and cape, I already feel like a dumbass. The woman is beautiful, and for whatever reason I’m kind of surprised—though how could I be, this is the magazine industry, and thus my underlying fear. I don’t often think about the physical presence of women or place myself in [a ruminating] comparison to them (say whatever you want about that, I’m just constantly having too many experiences where I feel like their insecurities get the best of them and their personalities become frightfully flat or vicious—both of which makes me feel like their appearance suffers as a result). But she was personable and everything opposite of her-shit-don’t-stink-Vogue-woman I met with last year. Story short, the position is actually with their Italian branch and had I been more confident that this was an interview for storyboarding and the like, I would have accentuated by interest, but alas she apologized that I seemed to be such a writer, and that this wasn’t in editorial. Arg, I don’t want to write about beauty – production and photo is what I want to do in a magazine. Regardless, she said my answers and Gallatin study were interesting and she was impressed. I’ll find out soon. I hope it happens—especially after her explaining how much the candidate needed to be particular to details, be especially focused and organized (all things I constantly want to be more of).

My way home, I got completely turned around and in a fluster found myself walking through the veins of the subway with some guy. It ended up being a hilarious digression that I really enjoyed, his family was from Orlando, he lived a few streets from me and as I slid out from the subway doors he told me went to NYU for finance. I couldn’t help but laugh to myself. How come all the way uptown in the stream of the subway, I can make such good conversation with an NYU student, but have suffered from making any lasting bonds during class time?! I stepped onto the platform, and some guy on a mic projected to the swarms of people, “Yeah, I’m a designer, too, I like your bag miss.” This, too, makes me smile—with fingers crossed, maybe that will help me with Bazaar but I doubt. I try and have humor with it all.

The day before was delight to the max. It was Chelsea time, literally. Galleries, and strange video art. Inhaling Pinkberry and sightseeing all the seafood restaurants. The Electric Encore Props warehouse. Floors four and five dedicated to the world of fantasy and the retrospect of times past. My favorite were all things old Victorian—the snooty, upright, proper common. Olive greens, caramel beiges and blushing pinks. Mirrors that reflect a darker tonality of yourself. 70s eye popping, or maybe just blinding, yellows, kelly greens, fire engine orange and violet purple furniture. Plastic solid state, Sony, Hitachi, Panasonic and Philco televisions in every shape and size. Radio clocks that look like astronaut head gear. Old television set props: microphones, on air lights and Vidicon TV film cameras. Unicorns and horses parading around upstairs. Raggedy Ann dolls and old Cornell pillows. Giant size crayolas, Lloyd’s 8 track player, marble dog statues, a family of mannequins, chairs circling the walls and 50/70s “curtains” hanging like ornate drop earrings. The place was genius.

There’s been more. I could write forever. My body is suffering the consequences of waking up every night and stumbling into the kitchen for feasts of peanut butter and butterscotch morsels sandwiches and biscottis with milk chocolate icing. I guess in my dreaminess, I just want to defy all I resist and fucking have some delights. I can laugh about it in the midst of all the action, just not the morning after when I wake to the results. Oh, pity me (yeah right). It has been almost a year—this is going to be a struggling time, but I’m just trying to push through with a higher head than I ever have had. In addition, in a haze of Ambien induced eyes and mind, I woke to my two messages that I had sent. One) a love letter/confession/revelation. Two) an artistic proposal to my sister. Both brilliant, ha.

“hi sissy strangerrr. 4am checkin. my taste buds are gone, perhaps the blend of ambien and radiohead? always seems deadly or disorderly. REGARDLESS, the walls are shaking, doors are slamming, the wind is rockin' its way in. AND ALL THAT IS OUTTA MY MINDFULLESS CONTROL. alas my wandering mind found you something special: "of course rules are made to be broken but when they have been broken they must be made again. periodically all the arts break their own rules, to renew themselves and to invigorate themselves when the letter is killing and the spirit is offering life." PUSH ON CHICK. make a riot in your art. tell the system you'll work with them, then upon presentation make their eyes pop forth. DON'T SILENCE THE ARTIST OF YOU WHO NEEDS TO SPEAK. tomorrow--when--before i go--can i buy us supper sweet and succulent sparkling glitzy wine for us to drink all glammed up, sprawling across the carpets, piles of blueberries and froyo, no artificial lights, only candles, traceable paper. lets begin making our magic. now or never. more image books. buttons. different sized canvases. frames. documentation. next time you work individual on a piece, i want to film different points of entry. allison -- it is time. time to lay ground for the new. d e d i c a t i o n. lets have fun. crazy sobers. sober crazies. that brings in our world, let it breathe a bit. i love you, sleeping beaut. lets talk magical business productions. letting photography (a disposable medium / the unpainted beauty of the everyday) stop the fleeting moment of time. stop the time from flying, let other time fly as you stop to stare and reflect removed from the time others are functioning in and on. these images leave us with a mysterious and poetic sensation, the melancholy of seeing things for the last time. by framing you as you begin your art, i capture eternity in a moment. allison do whatever you will do within the process, that fits you, for making a piece. this piece is yours. have it all. i'm here recording, exploring the whole thing. music bursting in whines. the collage of the corruption. plan? the way the mind moves.”

That shit is pretty serious, dead on. ☺ Oh, I almost forgot! I got accepted to NYU’s intensive summer fiction course. Working with two authors (one a professor at Columbia, yesss!), publishers and editors. This is exactly what needs to happen. I’m not at home now, night is definitely descending, I’m wearing beach sandals, my toes are going to freeze off. I need a bottle of red wine, a changed and cleanly bed and a special sleep-over.

candescent sea

The candescent sea collapses against the small curves of her body. Her body that hangs like a canopy on the sensuous shore of throbbing solitude. She remains there, visibly and audibly, as if she were one long sigh. No part of her shows an inclination to move. Except for her fingers that press deeper into the coating of the beach. She seems undisturbed. She seems as though her only wish is to hold on—to stay there—on the border where the sea meets the shore and falls desperately on to the body of the beach. She closes her eyelids, like a petal that drops from the bud that held it alive and open, as the wave ventures home and falls into a dark drape around her sublime skin. The silken sea like a ribbon rippling to the rhythms of the fleeting birds who sing their poetics to the wind who is moving too fast, to stop and reply.

Andrey Tarkovsky

Sometimes I am filled with a sense
Of absolutely breathtaking happiness
Which shakes my very soul,
And in those moments of harmony
The world around me
Beings to look as it really is –
Balanced and purposeful;
And my inner mental structure or system
Corresponds with the outer structure of the milieu,
The universe – and vice versa.
At those moments I believe myself to be all-powerful;
That my love is capable of any physical feat of heroism,
That all obstacles can be overcome,
That grief and yearning will be ended,
And suffering be transformed
Into the fulfillment of dreams and hopes.
This is one of those moments.
I believe that Larissa will succeed
In bringing Andriushka here,
And that we shall drink orange juice
And eat ice-creams in Via Cola di Rienzo,
In the café Leroy.
I don’t just believe it,
I know that’s how it will be.

inside/outside

It is only after I leave the interior world of the apartment, step forth into the vast landscape of the exterior world (which, I trust, still exists without me once it has disappeared from my eye), that I am most sensible. Otherwise, unless on Adderall or some other brief moment of ecstasy, my mind eats away at myself. I feel trapped within the walls. I feel defeated. Perhaps it is my room which feels a mess and therefore makes me feel a mess. Perhaps it is the heaps of books lining my walls and closet, which overwhelm me. Those are just excuses—and nothing more. It is not until the air hits my face, that I become alive again, invigorated again. No one would be able to tell that I carry within me two differing and opposing selves. Lucky for them, for the one who self-hates is so boring, unsuccessful and unproductive. And hopefully, she will die off soon. The struggle is so unexplainable. It baffles all who hears of it. For instance, the woman I sat in the corner room with on Tuesday—who asked me: Within the year that you struggled through your disorder, did you really not see anyone for help? Really? Yes. Really. Just me, pushing my self through. Or the woman last night who laughed with me: How come I can quit cigarettes one day and never look back. Make that decision, and never fall back. How come I can easily get myself better in that regard, and still struggle with a healthy mind. We laughed, rolled our eyes. And a man stood with me by the door, gave me his personal card and shook my hand as I left with a smile. People like what they see, people believe in me—I just wish I always did, too. The hours I spent fighting myself this morning were nothing but a waste. And so I push on, try and become busier, get outside myself.

following 03/04/08 around

“Chelsea, your working is becoming frighteningly brilliant, both in terms of conceptualization and articulation. Can we read your 'Each voice transcends' piece in class? It’s unique. So unique that it’s difficult, maybe impossible, to critique.”

* * *

My eyes feel heavy from a continual condition of fatigue. My lashes seem to stick to my skin, whenever they blink in closure. Skin that feels coated with wax, or the remnants of tears, though there has been none of those. However, my skin doesn’t look slick or shiny, but puffy as if from lack of consideration. There isn’t much more to say. I don’t know why I feel effected, like so, but the effect fills me with an overwhelming sense of emptiness. Though that sentence contradicts itself and sometimes I feel I do, too.

* * *

I hold a grudge, that I don’t openly or verbally admit to, over [him] and my decision to prolong our time together. I left other obligations to dedicate more intimate, personal time and relations to this one person. Someone that wasn’t as widely known, but that I felt served my time, need and personal fulfillments better. Nothing I take back, at all. I just regret my decision, recently, to withdraw from other activities to supposedly dedicate my attention to this one thing that has seemingly petered out. Now these long hoards of time leave me feeling more tired then ever. Though I deny liking routine, I find I do. I like the business a schedule requires of me. I like when I’m not the only one telling myself to focus, do this, be there, give more. I am hard on myself—this I can tell. I shouldn’t regret or hold grudge against any of my endeavours. I laugh at myself even now for not enjoying and relishing in more of my youth, and yet, I haven’t stopped myself yet to be more my age, get [more] high or put off a few more papers. I feel like I am past the time of reassembling my character, the concrete structures of my mind (sure things will change, and I will too with it, every hour, but the natures of my character are stuck with me), and therefore, I will always want more of myself, feel I should know more, wish my memory were better,…


* * *

Met with Victoria this afternoon. Spent a good amount of time talking about Phenomenology. She must have figured my mind was slipping up with thoughts of it, because after she left I looked down at her notes to me, and it clearly mentioned that a work of mine had a motif that was essentially dealing with Phenomenology, awareness of Being. She surprised me with yet, another book (Hotel Du Lac by Anita Brookner), assured that this would be a fit. My bag was already piled thick with books, seeing as I am always in between multiple reads. I suffer from impatience and eagerness. However, I decided to begin the novel this afternoon. I felt it was nice, an enjoyable read but the language wasn’t anything that struck me. But then, hitting page 92, it all made sense. Victoria was absolutely right, and I think after her reading three new works of mine over the weekend, she felt inclined to pass the novel along secure that it would hit me on a level that told me more about myself, than perhaps something I would find in the literary language of the author. For some reason—and perhaps this is the power of words—I feel better…about things, thoughts and my relation to them.


* * *

This weekend was scattered with meetings of really satisfying people. Occasions where no one was talking about people or things, and yet there was no mindfulness to avoid those topics, they just weren’t of any immediate interest. I got great recommendations of films, literature and the like. Ran into an old face, well really just a new face that I had seen in a class the first day of NYU, then dropped the class (these run-ins with him have happened all throughout my time at NYU), now finally spoke and was intrigued, definitely. Also met another SVA photography grad. How come I always feel this great vibe from all SVA students? I want to try and take a class there again this summer. Invited to an IFC event on Sunday. It was in Park Slope (damn, loved the area, all these cozy little dining spots). The event was in this space that felt like an old library from one of those Clue Mystery games with old school bachi ball. So many attractive faces! New York makes me lust after men like no other place in the world. Which means, of course, in my awkwardness (since it can only be suspected) that on my way out the door, I saw the actor and hearing that all women swoon for him, said in a suggestive manner, “Oh thereeeeee you are.” Sometimes, I take notice, around certain men I act like a “naïve yet poised blonde”—this aggravates me, but I find I play into it. Blah blah blah.

* * *

A year ago today, I was reminded, that my grandmother died. Instantly, I remembered the moment of my finding out well. I remember being on break from my Video Art class, my body spiraled around the rail of the stairs. Calling my father, for one reason or another, and in a very monotone and somehow what felt casual voice was told that his mother had died. I hadn’t known there had been any red flag, but I suppose everyone was denying that the time had finally come. I remember having no words, and what felt like no sympathy. I remember writing two works after that day, inspired by her death and the feeling that perhaps I had not known her intimately enough. My writing was driven by feeling then, feeling and suggestion. I have grown up a lot in a year. I have asked more of myself. I have quit bad habits that harmed me and in doing so have expected myself to be even more mindful and more in control. I have aged, and my writing has too. That is one of the most promising and rewarding things about writing—you document your mind, your progress and the surprise of your change.

stefaniapaparelli.com

paris 2002

intimo by stefania paparelli

Stefania Paparelli is not looking to dazzle, she leaves that task to the sun which has taken residence nonchalantly in her darkroom, trasforming into celestial and elusive creatures the young girl who poses for her during the fashion session. Fashion shall always be this reassuring pretext, harmony of garment and skin, the delicate ambiance of luxury in vogue: fashion conjugates light and intimacy. What fascinates Stefania Paparelli, is without a contest, this fragile and intimate moment of silence; an affirmed loneliness as an allegiance to life. "INTIMO" is an ode to silence.

Written by Flavio Nervegna


- The above text captures, so accurately, the poetic layers of meaning. How we use a medium to our own advantage--to display or offer a more intimate and hidden gesture that we, The Artist, feel imprisoned by, or rather, believe we have a loyalty to. And by virtue of this loyalty, we spend our days enraptured in producing the effect we are held smitten by for the outside world to see, experience and eventually be elevated by. At times, I must stop and remind myself that a medium or format needs only be the pretext that will help me expose what I really mean to share. -

roger deckker

http://rogerdeckker.com
another great site of his fashion spreads






my favorite style of his work is hypnotic, earthy, surreal, a bit (if i can say) blair-witchy, haunting really. i love it.

photographer, aneta bartos.

these are a few of the breathless images of aneta bartos. i already have a collection of absolute favorites. her mood is ethereal with a military mixed with victorian style. it all feels high glitz, glam and glow - but nothing is sharp (thank goodness!) it all is soft and out of touch focusing. really beautiful. check out her website: www.anetabartos.com (especially her fashion 2 & personal portfolios!)

Giambattista Valli

Sooo, back in the day, I had a fashion blog--more journalistic reviews than the "what-to-&-what-not-to-wear" assessments. I use to give thought, or rather just have fun and experiment, with fashion and the whole notion and free range of appearance. It was a way of working with my raging image disorder, rather than working against it. Oh, and I was a model, which turned me on more to the production of photography, set design and image making then the materials and brands of the clothing. (I experienced such dreadful people on shoots--and though I hate to admit, because I love them in every other realm of being, Germans were the worst to work for!) But back to what I was getting at. So then I went to college my first year, and became dreadfully lonely and dissatisfied--and instead of being productive in the "right ways", I travelled, took Chinatown buses to New York weekly, flew to Miami to sleep on the beach which was more or less a slap in the face to my family, auditioned for America's Next Top Model on a whim (and got...sorta...far), read poetry, made collages, bought the best music, listened to my most cinematic playlists while staring out bus windows, surfed runway blogs and photography, worked out religiously, swore off diet pills by spring time and then more or less ate close to nothing and ended up saving up $5000 dollars. With my new confidence... and ill-fitted mind that was craving all things spontaneous, I applied to The Fashion Institute, got accepted to the Business School, attended the following Fall at a horrific and unmanageable weight, was involved in the most strenuous courses, amongst the most miraculous perfectionists, posed for photographers, listened to professors discuss manipulation over the masses, fit models and tiny waists--and in between the days of eating a lunch of vegetables at Whole Foods, getting hired to appear as a Twiggy lookalike and being chased down by high school students screaming for me to eat something, I realized that fashion had slipped under my skin without me even admitting to it. I had been manipulated. I had been infected by the disease of trying to achieve perfection. I was contradicting myself when I said I advocated imperfections--and I had spiraled out of control. I left FIT and with the help of life in New York City, tried to begin to turn my life around, get healthy and believe I could stay that way. I got into Gallatin of NYU, my dream school from day one that I hadn't originally gotten into. And from the moment I walked into my first class, my mind changed--my world was reinspired. I live my life in and at extremes. This is something I know (I'm not dumb, I'm not entirely aloof, I am aware of myself..and I apologize in advance for being seemingly elusive, fleeting, intense). I was OCD from a young age. I dedicate my life to certain "things"--it may be food, one individual, a certain activity, a hobby, an insight and it is what I concentrate my mind on for the time being. My eyes are centered in on this object, my deepest passion goes towards it and it becomes my world. It's insane, sure, but I become dedicated and many sensations arise from that. At NYU, I felt--I was inspired--it clicked, that I was finally being able to make up for all the lost time. The years I dedicated to insight, rather than intellect. NYU is an academic university, and I have become an increasingly mindful thinker being here. Right now, this is my world. I haven't thought about fashion in the sense of myself and fashion. I laughed when I was hired at Diane von Furstenberg and told on my way out to bring flats and stems to work the following day, then declined and went with film. I know, I should stop being so harsh and just see myself separately. I have just needed to build myself back up so I don't suffer from falling off the deep end again. Perhaps, I have sworn it off and the whole system of magazines and publicity because of how it effects individuals--models that are dissolving from one season to the next, myself who merely vanished into half of herself within months and all the young girls (that I just recently remembered/admitted) that used/stole my photographs on the internet for their own cyberspace identity and promoted thinness/starvation. I never wanted this influence and I never thought I could be influenced this way. When I modeled I was, perhaps, lucky enough not to have to take notice of my body--it was not something I had to control and because of that I was my most successful. Perhaps, half of this rant, is really me craving the security to go back and use fashion as I once did, not be so self-demoralizing to my body and how clothes fit and not be so off putting to the industry. The truth is, it is an industry I can work well in. I see visually in photographs. I was brought up on sets, under lights, close to cameras. I never felt as confident as when I was in a dark-room--or as breathless as when I was behind a camera. The truth is, I want to be a writer. I want to be remembered for my words. And I want to help change the way others experience their identity in relation to what the outside world asks/influences them. I want to work with photographers. I want to push for the imperfections of beauty to be exposed in photography and throughout magazines. I love the aesthetics of sight--what I can see is what I write, and I want to write beautifully. I don't know how this came to be this long. All I really wanted to do was a post a few pictures from a runway show--just because I want to try and get back into the swing of things, archive the aesthetics of art and production and stay strong, recognize that I don't need to be influenced by weight because that my appearance isn't my calling and not what I want to be my claim of fame. And also because, I got a call from Harper's Bazaar and I might just begin working there. Which was always on the top of the top, before Vogue, before before before. The editor is who SHOULD be running the industry. But we will see where I get with that. Here are a few looks from Giambattista Valli Fall 2008 Ready to Wear line. I'm not familiar with it, but it struck me because I think it was the best casting job that has been done of the models for a show. I have never seen such a collection of girls that all have the same bone structure, oval faces, sharp daunting features, exquisite really!