Keith - Up In The Clouds

Keith - Up In The Clouds from Lucky Number Music on Vimeo.

I can't quite fathom how good dance remixes to this song will be.

How Little Was Left Undone

Who else woke beside their ashes? Or were you not there but by the window? A jarred? Beneath the pillow? Where safely your tooth laid? When you were a child who was it you believed? From dusk to dawn we traced images on eyes. Touching skin, he’d pull off my morality. My, I write, for this is me having known neither pleasure nor humility. But I pined for pain, that dying moment when thinking before all else, What is love? It isn’t this. You/us were hysterical, The need to want and feel it now. Unseen we spoke, then and only. We split, and exploring, exploding, we sighed. Traces scaring eyes. You woke leaving. I wake beside her. Body wrapped in dyed sheets. Unemotionally guiltless, I gather someone in pleasure came. Came, then left color, but no mental note. Yet, had he stayed, this bedded woman may have woken with knowing eyes and together figured pleasure out.

Chadd: Sundance Select

FADER TV: Sundance Selects "Asshole"
by thefader

I'm floored... Chadd was featured in FADAR as a Sundance Select. Though this is a collaboration and a comedy about an "Asshole's asshole" that also references Ambien (gotta love it), his own personal style is that of riveting beauty, reminding me of Alain Resnais' film Last Year at Marienbad. Bottom line, what he directs and writes is what I hope to see more of and pursue in my "art". And, the film that has been selected did make me laugh my ass off... a rare happening in the theatre.

A Likeable Loneliness

Instants after, I came.

With other words I will make it known, I was late like always. Consoling me was an obscure idea, a possible delusion yet not definitely so, that others were further behind than myself. With this mindset, if I were first to be at the promised place, it could seem and it would be as though I were always and able to be in a rush to place myself around another figure, to need some body. What sort of impression was it to be so very willing? The things I could do, I did, to prevent association with the given portrayal. However, even I, who pursues meta-narration does not feel it is always agreeable to be as self-conscious as the above awareness makes me out to be. One should be mindful without inhibiting instinctual behavior. One should be conscious without committing neurosis upon the Self. But how can any of us make sure extremist don’t meet their fatalistic extreme? Awaiting me was a thoughtful gesture. A drink anyone who knew me—which is to say, had been aware enough when around me to take notice was one of the three drinks I only drank. A Black Russian. I certainly had my tastes, as I hoped everyone did. Shying away from what one wanted became obvious with maturity. I was someone who found passivity in taste aggravating. Of course being shy, open-minded or considerable were fine and genuine entitlements. But to say jack and coke is what you’ll take, when it isn’t close to what you want and nothing that anyone is forcing you to have isn’t an admirable quality in being. At the leg of L-shaped bar, we sat with backs to the window and faced a swelling crowd. Red hair wrapped around her shoulders and my boy cut made us eye sores in this room of all males and a few other females with mustaches pasted above their lips. What called for such behavior? No one said they actually knew. But I figured there was no reason other than we lived in Manhattan where people did this all the time. It was appealing that a little hair and glue could change an ordinary day into something remarkable and which could be thought upon. Together we called attention to the men our eyes found attractive. Someone in a gray hoodie. For her, a blonde that was unquestionably not straight. I said I wasn’t attracted to blondes and she asked whether my taste changed with my hair color. I figured it hadn’t. We ordered French 75s. Got a round free. A man came over, his speech slippery, his arms reaching out to both of our chairs. A sort of all including embrace. He wanted to know what we were having. Wanted it, too. Oh, but couldn’t, no not gin and champagne. He couldn’t tank himself tonight. I smiled, slightly, thinking a few bubbles could never be a bad thing. He left, but he’d be back. She said any interest would keep someone from going away. I found it unfortunate—this separation and expectancy in behavior. Didn’t people retreat from home, pursuing the possibility of meeting someone they hadn’t ever met, but felt—if only even for that night—they wanted to know. And yet here we were, with no obligation to anyone despite what our rings suggested, talking about turning others away. I wondered whether it was hypocritical—if people predicted too many of their experiences and as a result ended up with fewer surprises and artificial intrigue. She assumed correctly and he came, many times, never wanting really to leave, let alone remain alone. Taking up our hands, he saw rings he felt meant marriage. And she told him all these little lies that she didn’t ever mean to be that way, but said just to make stories shorter and lifestyles more of an illusion to marvel at. He became sad, a bit tormented inside with his self against his self. Older, watching friends marry, kids come, feeling he was missing something someone important, as if those extraneous appearances would make his life automatically special. More and more, I witness and hear fragmented confessionals about needing not to be alone in Manhattan. Relations keeping their relation out of fear of approaching the city singularly. Single in the city and everyone was waiting to be approached. Some even made ads on Craigslist, hoping that at the very least they would have someone to dine with. It seemed interesting to me—the tactics and the rules that dating services inspired. I heard a story where after a few dates, a text was sent to come by her usual spot for a drink, he responded, “I don’t feel there was any connection. Good luck on your search.” No bullshit. Just a straight up shot served, swallowed and hopefully digestible. A following night: Although my response was let’s do it some other time. He came over Friday. Not taking what I said to mean anything. It was nice to see him back. Even though, it was three by now and I had no interest waking tomorrow with a guest and separate things we both wanted to do. There was television. Something I never use. But we put in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and to my surprise, we were both folded over with laughter in the other’s arms. At times we would wait, purposefully, in silence. Only to appreciate this awkwardness we allowed ourselves to maintain. He was more pressing than he’d ever been. But I still mentioned how he made me feel like I was 6. And he said he felt even younger. I said there was nothing to say. Our dialogue always resembled French film noir. We were inverted. Then again that was how and where we met, so maybe we were just conditioned. His hands are big, his eyes always so small, as if he can barely see. And he says he is so tired. And I know how bad he wants to stay. Even when we would keep our clothes on, I knew he was happy to be there, closer to someone. That someone on nights was me. But I couldn’t have myself do it. Not this time around. And I grabbed his hand instead, saying again how they are always so soft. We held them next to each other. For the first time, I wondered whether the lines ever changed. Would that line on his palm always cut into that other line? We should photocopy our hands, do it ever so often and see what changes. But I didn’t have any ink. Now he was really ready to stay. In Manhattan there are so many people that it’s hard to rationalize why or how you end up leaving and lying down alone. It was 6am and I was lifting the window in my bedroom, closing curtains and pulling my sheets loose. Sitting for a moment, watching him outside my door, waiting to see if I’d call. But I just couldn’t. And instead, I joked about how his coat looked like a dress. I pulled the sides out as he stood considering himself in the mirror. It was a precious moment. And then I pushed him outside the door, not waiting to watch him be taken on the elevator away. Both of us starting this morning, waiting for our bed where we would lie alone.

It's Questionable

The internet involves distance. I am here and imagine you, as you read this, becoming closer to where I use to be - maybe only moments ago - in mind. One would hope this intangible presence of mine would be honest. I may even think that in no way is my compulsion to write in fact the desire to show myself off. I don't know what it has become, this webbed persona, since it is so long ago that it started. Graduating High School I received the superlative for "[Most] Unique". I remember being uncertain of what that entailed and whether I felt I was being over or underlooked. Most of the time, I have decided, I don't think even I am seeing or hearing myself right. I expect myself to be freer than I feel. Once not long ago, I opened my Senior Yearbook and found messages streaming across the pages. To my surprise, I had forgotten everything that had been written. It wasn't words from friends, but rather classmates, people I spent hours with but did not necessarily ever see outside school life. Regardless, I went to a small school, so we all knew each other well. Even stranger was what they chose to say - what they would always remember about me and in repetition was this statement that they wouldn't forget how I made class better, lighter - how funny I am. This humor, carelessness, euphoria are ways of being that fueled even myself, but that I haven't felt consistently in years. I like to imagine that depending upon the city, I am a certain way. But I can't help but think this is nothing short of an excuse. Do we not choose our being? Can I not just wake and force my body into action? Since May I believe I have felt self-contained, as if there is someone inside of me that is trying to force themselves out through my skin. I always do try to force myself out of situations I feel stuck in. Usually, by immersing myself in more and other work. Interviews. I've had many of them. This Wednesday a modeling agency wants me to come in and interview for their marketing department. It's either that or publicity for an entertainment company representing musicians. This is going to be the hardest semester yet, but I want something other. I want to be on someone else's hour. I want to think less about my self-production.

Thursday taking the elevator down. Packed. Toward the back. A guy turns to me in the midst of his friends. Hello. I tell him he looks familiar, as if I have memories of him. He tells me, insecurely, that we sat next to each other in class this morning. Of course I remember that I tell him. I meant before I saw you then. The elevator opens. Students walk further away from school. He keeps talking. I'm tired, hungry, starving maybe and a bit caught off guard. He keeps talking. Wanting to know all these things about me. Small things. But they seem like they are dire questions. What class was I just at? What am I taking? How is it going? What do I like most? I laugh telling him I have noticed he is the only male in our Anatomy of Love class, but that I have found where all the other Gallatin males go - in my class on Perversion. We laugh. All females in Love. More males than I have ever seen at Gallatin in Perversion. I laugh again, but think Iike I do so many times, that I have rarely laughed genuinely in Manhattan. This to me is not right and seemingly impossible. But everyone I know, everyone I meet, seems to behave like I am being listened to rather than talked with, as if I am advising or speaking in confessionals. It feels isolating. I lack emotion. The guy keeps talking. I listen to how my voice lacks tone. I seem shy. How has this happened? How have I gone from the other extreme then moved to New York, gotten older and yet, become more shy. Girls come up to him. Cut our conversation and involve themselves. Their arms hanging on his neck. They seem like they are begging. He seems unattached. He says he wants to go for pizza. Every guy always asks to go grab pizza. But I say I've got to go the other way. We have Tuesday to speak.

What prompted this rambling was Franz Kafka's quote: My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication - it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness - it is all that I have - and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all that my peers have as well.

For months a thought comes into my head, a thought I never let stay too long: Does Manhattan turn some into addicts? Needing something to give you the energy for achieving all that waits outside your door. And then wanting something else to come off that adrenaline, so one can be calm for once. This has begun to concern me. And yet, I am in a better place than I have ever been. Or so I write that. Having you assume this is all honest. That this is all me. And I, too, assume that by editing the footage of life, you will receive me. Even though you may forget it is, not so simply, a select self. I don't know if this is the better part, or rather the one you may want to read. I doubt.

I never have felt happiness reads too well. Just as I have often tried to explain how when I am in love it is the last thing I can write about. Maybe my writing isn't all so present. Perhaps, also, my pieces are more fictious than I think.

Tortured

Already it was dark when we met. The end of the week. A month since I felt home. What they meant. These details. Escaped us.

I can’t see how they could mean. And yet I, absolutely, don’t know. But think this, also, was the way you thought. Even though we never once spoke. About that.

I have a feeling it wasn’t all so important. Watching you move through vision. Standing with my back blocking light. Already it was dark when we met. Separately friends said we should go home, just not together. But I had a feeling they didn’t know time. Or how much we needed. Also, they weren’t my friends because never did they try to know me.

It was the end of the week and I was ready to go home. But even though nobody noticed, it had been a month and I hadn’t been there. Moving through vision, my eyes kept you close. Since closeness and closure are certain ways I like to have it.

Inside where we were. Down below. Walled in seduction. A sort of cave, you could call it. Many open rooms. Faces kissing. People without their mouths. Walking. Moving. Following you there, then and around. My back blocking light. Friends talking over talking, talking about times. Details that should have been forgotten by now.

Someone was doing something with music. To torture me. And I’m dancing. Trying to get high. Higher off ground. Away from where all these people like to be. I’m dancing. Doing someone. Tortured. Something with music. You’re dancing. Moving me all around. I’m waving. Not to you, to who I said are not my friends. Telling them I’m leaving, not staying down, going up, getting away from what is being done to me. I can’t dance with this music. This isn’t how I am. Not the way I want to be. And I’d really like if I could find someone. Anyone who will get me home. But it’s a month till I’ll be there and a month since I’ve been. Gone. So I’ll get him, yeah you. And we’ll wait. But it's not as if I don't not like to never not be alone.

“Hey you, yeah you, you’re the one. Take me.” “Tonight? Where? Where do you see us going?” “Some place. We won’t need light.”

And it’s good because he hasn’t any. I’m following. Following you there, then, to a place I’m still settling in. Zippering down with my back blocking light. The light you don't have. It’s as I said. These details, they escape us. We don’t need them. To mean anything. Hey him, yeah you, he's the one. I’m staying and I’ll be gone once I go. But we have many hours and I don’t need my eyes till then.

But we never once spoke either. About what that. What it. What, what? What we meant.

Slide Show

Silent by Steven Meisel (Vogue Italy, August 2008)

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: vanderloo mark)

It's not that I do not know.

We were ridiculous for discussing love as if it were some object we are entitled to attain. Even worse was the groping, your hideous procedure of having gestures determine commitment. Were we both not completely made up in mind? Making ourselves believe we mattered more than it meant. Lying there, I wanted to laugh or altogether hide behind my skin, when you suggested my passivity was a result of the hour’s lacking energy. As if time were responsible for anything at all! You can only wish. I didn’t not fall down on you or tie my ankles around your neck because the way my body reacted when the clock’s hands were positioned wide open. If I had the will I would have done even more than you expected. More so to set you off, than turn you on. Sometimes I think of all I never say. I think how what you do not know affects us. How it makes you seem ignorant and manipulable. And then I see I am the partner in control. This makes me feel important, which isn’t what I think I need. I need you to tell me what you want: “Push me down or I’ll push you away.” Tell me you want me to want you back and then, I will give you my all. Tell me I am deceptive, delusional, addicted to algolagnia and maybe I will call, ever so genially, begging you be near. Tell me I have no heart and then, maybe, I will reconsider this act called love.

Oh hush, I was only practicing my part. But say it! Are you coming? 'Cause I could really use you now. 

A Close Call

Without a word, the city speaks to me. Outside I hear a coin constantly being turned on its head. Not one mouth mouths tails or the other. The dime drops, dumb and unvalued. On the opposite side of the street, a man polishes the rail. Going up, he is on the third step with his back facing this I. Twice each season, he comes placing a coat over fingerprints so past presences linger no longer. Though they aren’t here, those touching people feel obscure now, dense even. Pausing, they look down and inward, unable to decide whether they are wanted back.

Inside it is a stranger world that others never catch. Doing things, we think no one can see or tell. But if they did, should we mind? would I say sorry? sorry you were looking. My feet seek warmth in mittens. Tucked beneath opposing thighs, I resemble a ribbon as I write this on some Wednesday, in light of afternoon, too quotidian to be remembered but simple enough to idealize now. 

I never get very far before the sky appears destroyed. It’s the day’s final hour, so I stand on the balcony, watching time be taken and darkness diffused. My age stares me dead on. I’d rather turn, taking up interest elsewhere, and avoid nature to say something but it is weird when no one is around pretending to listen. 

The evening is later and I worry you will not have come. Not even close. It’s sad, this singularity, you cause me to claim. Achieving fewer experiences, which in class I am taught isn’t where intellect fosters. I am unsure which I’d rather more of—the body or the mind. My hands take up you if there, or books when I’m here, speechless and thinking it’s not me who is being seen. 

Hanne Karin Bayer

"It's about being human. It's beautiful. It's touching. It's fantastic. It's acting. It's acting and reality at the same time. We always end up resembling the characters we play. Or the characters end up resembling us. That happens too... It always surprises me to be in this situation, because after all, I interpret a role. I don't have a gift for making up lines, just like that." - Anna Karina.

Carrying you around in my eyes.

On the seventh floor nature is deceptive through the raised window. A vulnerability in light, my body sleeps in the final frame of dream. Entwined in not arms of last night, but vines of emerald and diluted jade. My springtime purchase, these sheets retain your presence. Those hours spent falling into my open shape. Clinging to me, like a memory I try to feel closer with, is a deeper perfume. During day, I live the nostalgia for our evenings. When we spoke of ourselves as if it were the only thing we needed to learn before light took us by surprise. We were engrossed, I am sure they said. And didn’t need each other, which was probably true. But we never asked anyone to watch, though I don’t blame so and so if we were found noticeable. We only thought to know ourselves, while lying in bed with backs against time. I felt we were on our way.

It is impossible now not to see contours of a figure set outside a dream. To turn over and remember you there. It hasn’t anything to do with love, rather a touch I felt I’d enjoy in repetition. Even if the moment never seemed real, I can’t just open my eyes and blame impressions on the hour and its quantity of light. I slept as well then as I lived; there was no place I went to hide. To feel is a luxury we are entitled to allow. But that doesn’t mean we control when or why it happens or whether I achieve resulting comfort. 

What did you say? I try to remember when our faces are apart and I can’t whisper, again, what it is you think I should know, which is more or less what you hope I remember. When I listened, I acted like a child. Seeing you always for the first time, I was a trusting girl with large eyes that stare. Not wanting to overpower hours most appropriate for my learning, I became smaller as you were developing into someone I hadn’t considered you’d be. Keeping quiet was my mouth who didn’t say a thing about what my mind was carrying on. I shouldn’t always reveal everything, even though I knew you would remember me more had I given myself away, nicely. 

Another word. A longer glance. If I chose it well, you may have seen me perfectly. My palm kept open instead, and you read it without a clue. Subtle signs of my aging. You pressed them against the wall, waiting for my urge for freedom. Something I wasn’t wanting to have. The only thing I think I thought was how in winter, when nothing moves in apartments, I’d miss this time. And sure, I know ways to replace, so what I miss can be forgotten as a mistake. But that doesn’t mean I am in any rush to do so. Because a sigh for a sigh is not exchangeable, although it’s the consequence of two bodies and lips that moved their way into communion. Knowing this, still, I’d like to think what makes a difference in mind are the eyes and a bit of heart. As much as we try to manipulate the quality and quantity of what we feel, nothing is ever the same. Each moment is unmatchable.

Today is not like the day before. Outside is a city I can never hear. And I wake with the light thrown in, to watch a vacancy compartmentalized, hoping someone is left that at times I cannot see who will come and move me closer to a feeling you are responsible for.

Emerging Surrealist Director

Filmmaker Sophie Barthes plans to open her first feature, Cold Souls, with a title card containing words from the French philosopher René Descartes: “The soul has its principal seat in the small gland located in the middle of the brain.”

The quote is typical of Barthes’s ironic and unexpected sensibility. In both her Sundance short Happiness and her upcoming feature Cold Souls, she tackles dark themes (loneliness and existential crisis, respectively) with a witty blend of fantasy and character-based humor reminiscent of Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman. “I’m very interested in poetic science fiction, films like Alphaville, that play with philosophical concerns,” Barthes says.

extracted from Filmmaker Magazine

Ah, a woman director compared to Gondry and Kaufman cannot be anything short of brilliant or at the very least worthy of seeing. Not to mention she is a fan of Godard and her last name is Barthes... any relation to Roland Barthes? I don't know, but if you don't know either of these two, spend some time checking them out.

Also, Sundance has begun, as well as Slamdance (The Indieroad Film Fest). What is great about the latter is you can stream the films online ($9 usually) and take part in screenings and voting. Already on my list is Only written, produced and directed by Ingrid Veninger and Simon Reynolds.

Below is Alphaville by Godard. If only I were French and could be mentored by French screenplay writers. They know precisely what should be included and what is a waste of breath. My opinion, of course.

And to end, a quote by Descartes: And so something which I thought I was seeing with my eyes is in fact grasped solely by the faculty of judgment which is in my mind.

I am acting for the other eye.

claudeleanmusee.tumblr.com

These images are fixated by a format that encloses me in a place in time and captures an expression of an instant, perhaps nothing more than a fleeting moment, maybe even a lie I acted when the camera's eye was present. How accurate can this representation be of me? How effective is the evidence one picture reveals? There is no conscious thought that radiates because the anticipation for the flash stopped the speech of the subject. I want to know words - I want to see how I sound. 

hungry? eat me.

loads to indulge in later.

What you know, you know.

I, too, wondered where time had gone. There was an inactivity that, ironically, charged me. Perhaps, it was a result of anxiety. But to blame anything other—especially that which is abstract—was a useless discarding of time. And like I said, or rather implied, I want to take time back or at least use it—exaggerate it.

Something at home always felt “off”. I can’t remember how I use to think, but supposedly others’ memory of my behavior—back then—was always being on the go. Distant and involved in a sort of freeing up of myself. I was younger wanting to advance age. Let go. Let my body loosen. Perhaps, it was my way of avoiding an instability sensed at home. You fragment yourself, so your self-conscious is attracted inward rather than outward on others who are affecting you, but that you can’t control. Perhaps, jarring my heels on dance floors was my way of cushioning the noise of parental arguments. It’s possible, and although it sounds trite or even like I am whining about how “my life has been soooo hard on me,” that isn’t my intention, nor the truth. The fact is I felt it was worse. I felt it was a feeling. Imagine that! Talk about abstraction. And inevitably, it is an ambiguity that I am still trying to translate—silence, acting, projecting expectations, a routine model of life, you versus your other, deflated romance. Where had desire gone? And why weren't they trying to get it back? Did they not want it? From those I thought they were after?

Three times in the last week and a half, I admitted to a sort of query—a query that was intended to explicate this path I am on. Aloud I wondered whether I had simply woken up one day within the last year and instantly recognized that I was so far deep—consumed, committed—to writing, that I was just going to go for it and that couldn’t not because, like I said, I had devoted years trying to write myself and others out. I wanted this role to be the one that didn’t change. I was always changing. Trying to find a sense of self I admired.

Now, I sit on porch steps at parties, looking out at dazzling lifestyles and ask people I have only just met how to make this happen. Others my age don’t ever seem to have an answer, just a nicotine exhale—trying to dispose of fear and expectation for our futures. I think the hardest thing is accepting that in a culture that demands immediacy, we will have to work just as hard and just as long to achieve quality. Of course, in the next few months if I find out that I wasn’t accepted for my MFA or that I will have to move away from Manhattan, I will cry. I will cry for a relationship that just begun, that was severed. I will think the dream has no future in reality. The ironic part is I have always been turned away from my dreams—Gallatin, New York City, goalie—and I always made sure I got there, even if I had to circle around three or four times. 

However, no matter how much I prepare—consciously—I will never be ready. I will be surprised. And on Monday when I spoke, hypothetically, about being a visitor in New York—my voice wavered so much, that I had to stop speaking all together. What is this all about? Oh I don’t know. But I will say I have absolutely devoured Susan Sontag’s Reborn and the more author’s diaries I read, the more I acknowledge that I shouldn’t leave out the daily things affecting my writing. I do want to say what I did, and he said, and she said, and why we laughed, or why I left, and what I ate, and what I wish I ate. Whatever it is. 

Three days ago, I took down ornaments with Jonathan. If I hadn’t taken the first ball and begun wrapping it, the tree never would have ended up outside. He loved talking forever. It reminded me of last November when I was reading Octavio Paz out by the pond, and he came around back, pulled up a chair and spoke to me underneath the umbrella table for two hours. I have many notes from that day. He left and I called my sister, saying we needed to do a documentary on him. He could open eyes. 

The tree began looking shriveled and depleted of meaning, as he told me about the poems he writes and the letters he wrote for other people to give those they were after. He told me it was a rare gift to write what you feel, because most people don’t know how to articulate it. I thought it sounded unimaginable, but I told him I thought people did not write because they didn’t like the permanence of it. They didn’t want to isolate moments that they so desperately needed to let go of. They did not want to admit feelings. He told me about John Travolta’s son dying and how he use to race home to watch Welcome Back, Kotter. He told me he was waiting to hear about whether he could own the house in Homestead. He told me neighbors stared at him, not wanting color in the neighborhood. I told him he should see Gran Torino. We packed boxes full with Christmas decorations in the garage and just outside the fence, a car drove by and stole 11 pieces of equipment from the yardman at my house. They all took off running into the street. People have no conscious. Not the kind that matters anyway. My grandmother found out right before Christmas that she had breast cancer. Yesterday she did a radical surgery to remove one of her breast. In recovery, they let my mom know that she had more in her lymphs. My dad told me she would be in chemotherapy. I got my nails done yesterday. I go there just to check in on life with Shawnna. I showed her pictures. Talked about sex. What I was trying to communicate in writing. She told me about her hours, being too exhausted once she got home. But she was happy, absolutely. She would tell everyone that came in and asked. And then, she would wink at me. She mentioned my dad was getting knee surgery at the end of the month. Then she realized, I hadn’t known about it. That’s right. No one had told me. Just like so many things I was beginning to realize. 

Please, hear me out.

Two minutes after the instant of my birth, my sister was born. I have always been involved with otherness. “You can’t be twins, you don’t look the same”—a fixed assumption that denies us at the same moment it determines our fate. In the eyes of others, who we are and what we are not depends on sight.

In fourth grade, a razor sent my hair free-falling to my ankles. Unencumbered by self-analysis, I did the unheard of—willing appeared genderless. Like most children, I was young with everything to learn. My impulsive head-buzz encouraged me to discover a separate sense of Self so another’s eyes would not control my meaning.

One moment I felt free and my next memory is being restrained. My face was discovered and my body signed to a modeling agency. I became an image framed, studied, handled. Now I am inked because the emptiness provoked by the gaze needs to be translated. I am confident in today’s media saturated culture, humanity needs help being heard and wants to feel less alone in their otherness. We need a sense we can depend on, that unlike sight is not projected, but is genuinely felt and lived in. I am dedicated to exposing the interior voice and if a mirror is needed to see the Self, my text will unfold into a mirror of the mind.

Committed to role-playing at a young age, I communicated a story through sight alone. As an image, I conveyed no personal truth and my identity was constantly changing depending upon another eye’s translation of my appearance. I was imagined. Then one day, my body changed. Heavier—others wanted to see less of me. Skeletal—others believed I meant less.

Avoiding mirrors, I denied my body was dying and that my reality of Self was damaged. Reversing the gaze, I turned inward to make sense of my image disorder. And for the first time I saw my Self. In the silent language of the nerves—a reality felt but not seen—my behavior’s intentions were translated. Writing made me face my Self—an interior sight I knew, if communicated, would help others be free of surface impressions. Through narration, I became aware of truth and discovered how the Self could finally be known and genuinely experienced.

Writing saved my life. I am pursuing an alternate discourse modeled on the mind to help rescue others from what I consider the alienating and deceptive effects of the visual world. Coming from a theoretical discipline at Gallatin, New York University’s Individualized School, I hope to filter in theory under the guise of fiction and change what is assumed readers can handle. We need something new and courageous—something letting us reside within our Self, while facilitating a more genuine engagement with the Other via its relationship with our inside.

Inspired by the écriture féminine movement, my postmodern oeuvre mirrors a post-structural consciousness—paradoxical, as opposed to contrived perfection. At graduate school I want to continue clarifying the contradictions of reality—Self and Other, genuine and ideal being, interior and exterior. Not wanting meaning to be lost in a dense forest of words or have poetic prose idealize, I have recently freed language of filters. My purpose is to reveal the real by communicating vulnerability and the core’s emptiness. Since my passion is to have eyes visualize the inside, the “I” must speak in a relatable language so my experimental and philosophical fiction is accessible and seduces the reader into risking what I risk—the truth.

Empowering every generation to decide how they are seen in a world where the exterior is prioritized and idealized, my singular voice promises change both in literature and Self. Wanting to be heard my entire life, I am writing on behalf of my survival and life dedication to others seeing inward.

I'm living 2009 like I haven't lived 2009 before.

Well, this new year did not begin by waking up lying with someone in a hammock in the middle of the sea, traveling on a sailboat. But I was on a boat and it was a lovefest of different sorts.