"endless summer"

It's funny how you can use something once and then decide that you'll never use it again, even though it's perfectly good. It just isn't right to use something with that much emotional value again.

For instance, I'm sitting at my desk, and I'm noticing the three-quarters-full Endless Summer Moisturizing Mist and Linen Spray on my window ledge. I'm thinking about the fact that I used that spray so excessively at camp, and I'm thinking about the words "endless summer," and what a lie that is, and I'm thinking about my view of the city from my window, which is perfect, but no one else can see how perfect it is because when I show them how it looks in a picture, they just can't tell. (I'll upload my view later, because right now Blogger is being uncooperative. You can't tell, but actually, people who make postcards would totally pay to set up their tripods and whatnot in my room because it's so amazing.)

Seems to happen a lot. Something is really incredible, but others just cannot see it from the pictures. It looks meaningless to them.

Oh my God. I really need to delve into my drawings or something. Listen to me.

I'm going to go sketch something now. You better hope it's not more eyes--for your own sakes.

ciao
the smart one

back to cool

That's what they say!
And speaking of speaking (man, can you tell how much I have always wanted to use a segue as cheesy as that?), my little brother just started at my school and says it's the best school ever and he never wants to leave.

I have just one thing to say: !

Actually I have a lot more than that to say. I got into the car with my mom and just started blabbing and didn't stop for ten minutes until she forced me to listen about my brother's first day. So first of all, I have what my last-year social studies teacher calls "the dream homeroom." I have several friends in there, and all in all, it should be great. In fact, it's one of the few things I'm optimistic about. My ex-teacher also said the funniest thing. She told me that the popular girl, let's call her Grace because there are no Graces at my school, actually has a lot in common with me once removed from "certain social influences." This is to me a fascinating concept because I have never been popular and find it close to unimaginable that I could be friends with the popular girl. However, my mom had a friend in college who was just that type--popular pretty cheerleader--and they were practically inseparable. So I'm interested in this possibility.

the houses may be prefab, the mindset may be postfab, but I'm fab for all eternity

I am kidding.

I know it means prefabricated. God.

Develop an appreciation for humor, wouldja?

Well, I went to MoMA on Thursday--for those of you like my friend who came with me and had never been to MoMA, that's the Museum of Modern Art in NYC--and saw a couple of awesome things there. I've been dying for some intellectual activity ever since I got back from New England, and I was only too thrilled to go. All I did for a month was walk and bike and hike--and of course, forget the book I was supposed to read for summer homework. The only museum-resembling place I got to go was the Loon Center, meant a hike, which was only supposed to take us about 45 minutes but ended up taking three hours when we got lost.

So anyway, see the first picture? That's something I took on my phone of the description of one of the housing units, System3. The structure, my least favorite, captured my mother's eye because of the text here highlighted: the units may be STACKED. Stacked! How thrilling! I've always wanted to have the freedom to stack my living space.

My favorite was Burst*008, the one created with a computer formula, but I didn't get a picture of it, and I don't believe in finding pictures on the Internet from things at which I was physically present. (Of course, if I could only be there in spirit, bring on the Google images.) Instead, I provide ici a photo of the Micro Compact Home, 76 square feet of living space. I thought the irony of me liking that one was harmonious with the irony in my life: similar to the way I prefer the tiny house, my favorite friends and guys tend to be short. Even my sister, my life consultant, is short for her age.

Sorry. I know it can get dangerous when I talk about irony.

Well, I'm going to go figure out how to scan drawings onto my laptop, because it's making me sad that the latest ones on here are from January. Don't worry, the reasons for that are not because I've stopped drawing, they are that

a) MY BAT MITZVAH, HELLO, NEED I SAY MORE?

b) midterms/final tests/projects/4th quarter report cards flung me into a time-sucking pit of stress

c) suddenly I decided I wanted to join the track team

and

d) after that whole crapload of work, I was off and running on a long summer of travel.

But I'm back now.

But now I'm going to the scanner.

So bye.

how does it feel to be a problem?

Yeah, I'm asking you! The pressure is on!

No, but actually, that's the title of this book I heard about yesterday on my way home on WNYC. The full title is How Does It Feel to be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America, and it sounds great. They interviewed the author and one of the subjects--I don't remember her name, but her story is that she won for high school president at 15 against all odds and then was forced to resign because her religious beliefs wouldn't allow her to attend the dances, and she was supposed to be present at every school event.

This guy supposedly just asked around his Brooklyn neighborhood in the Arab community, and, by word of mouth, it turned into enough stories to write his book.

So... here's the WireTap article. If for some reason you do read it, not that anyone who reads this blog would want to, but if you do, please tell me how it is--I still have to finish my summer reading. That's me, the bad student.

"Fill in the U.S. for both the fattest and the most coked up nation on Earth."

That's a quote from this article, Highest Traces of Cocaine Found on US Bills.

Ironically, I am feeling too creative to post right now, so check out the list of poetry and prose websites on the right. Sorry and ciao.

savannah outen

I'm trying so, so hard to dash through and write my entire short story. I was on a roll until I looked up "Stop and Stare" on YouTube and found Savannah Outen's video of it. Turns out she's a 15-year-old "online singing sensation" with over 29,000 subscribers on YouTube. Her music video just debuted at the high school where she shot it. She has a single and music video coming out later, as well as singing the Star Spangled Banner at the LA Rangers game on April 27th, my sister's birthday.

Cool, huh. Not that I think she's so great or anything--I mean, she sings pop songs, which I hate--but it is amazing that she really has gotten this far. It's pretty fairytale.

Oh and by the way, if you comment on the snippet I posted just underneath this post, I'll give you the awesome ending I've already written (guess I'll have to write in the rest of the story too).

takashi murakami

Here are some pictures from the only Japanese artist I genuinely like: Takashi Murakami.

I went to the exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art this past Saturday when I was going to my old friend's bat mitzvah. My dad picked up a volume about Japanese art in their bookstore, and these pictures caught my eye in a flash. I hate Japanese art usually; the cuteness and clean lines annoy me to no end, especially in anime, which I loathe with a passion. However, I love this sadistic and happy grimness. Check it out and rate it. I posted them to a school forum, too.

the new black

Actually I prefer black to the new black, whatever the new black is.

But I wanted to talk about new things, and I figured the stupidity of this title would grab people's attention. I've just started learning Hungarian Dance on the piano, and it's a really fun piece. It turns out that there are all these twists and trills along the way of a tune that's been saturated into tasteless simplicity for countless cartoons and Disney movies.

Also, I'm reading White Noise (link later), which I'm finding to be a serious page-turner, and I haven't even gotten to the plot yet. This kind of addictive quality in a book's beginning really attracts me and is a definite plus.

As always, I'll keep you updated.

confused

There are a lot of confusing things around. For instance, people are confusing because you can't tell what they're thinking. Sharpies are confusing because they wash off everything in time but your nails. And Ginger Rogers is confusing because when you see one of her movies on TV but forget the name of it, you browse a Wikipedia list of all of her work, and you find out her real name was something like Hildegaard Vinderlet Smitty...or something equally confusing in its non-resemblance to "Ginger Rogers," anyway.

books and movies

Don't worry, this time there's a reason for the title of the post being "movies."

BOOKS:
-The Hotel New Hampshire The end, even if it wasn't ugly or big or violent enough, even if it didn't have enough fatalism or barbells or did "not merit so much as a moan from Screaming Annie," despite all these supposed flaws, it was definitely right.
-1984 Just started this one, as opposed to just having finished the previous book, but I'm convinced that it's got just the right amount of confusing to make sense. (I wonder if I can say "just" one more time in a single sentence.)
-Discordia: The Eleventh Dimension I read this all today. It was pretty short and very difficult to read but easy to get through, if you know what I mean. This book was written by my the mother of one of my mom's favorite old students; the mother's name is Dena K. Salmon (how cool is that?). Actually, it hasn't even been published yet; what I got to read was a sort of pre-edition, a draft, a mock-up. I liked it very much all the same.
-Jane Eyre Look, maybe there was a rather interest-renewing murder right where I left off, but Brontë is going to have to try just a little harder to keep my attention span on its toes. I have to abandon this one until there's really no reading material left, at which point I will finally burn it and make a beeline for that great used bookstore in Princeton.
-The Mayor of Casterbridge Tom...Tom...Wake up, man. Where'd you go? I thought you'd changed. I thought this novel, maybe, was going to get the plot going before the last three pages. It did, too, and I was so proud, even optimistic for once in my life. Unfortunately, though, I have hit a wall. Hopefully, this dull and wordy section is just a bump in the road, as there were many of in Tess. So to be fair, and also because I otherwise love your work, once I finish 1984, I'll give this one an honest second chance.

MOVIES:
-JUNO Yes, I saw this a while ago, but I finally ripped the soundtrack from my mom's officemate's CD to my laptop, and I can't stop listening. Unfortunately, I can't transfer the songs to my iPod either. Oh well, can't win 'em all.
-27 Dresses I have to say that my least favorite dress in the whole thing was that of Katharine Heigl's character at her own wedding. I'm sorry, but the overly heavy overcoat-like layer of embroidery just does not do it for me. I prefer the Southern Belle dress; at least that one's got a sense of humor.
-South Pacific I'll admit it, I've seen it roughly a quadrillion times, but my grandmother and I, what with the combination of my deep and unnatural mind-craving to hear the earworm My Girl Back Home and her slightly nauseating nostalgia for the flick, we just had to watch it.
-Schindler's List Sorry, sorry, the list is getting long, but believe me, I'm omitting some. (Obviously I've had nothing to do over President's Day weekend but sit around like an oaf, eating and watching movies.) All I can say is that I'm honestly not as much of a night person as the me that watched this movie until 2:30 in the morning without having had any coffee whatsoever since noon that morning--and I'm especially not the me who cried like she was mourning the death of her own mother watching the part at the end where Schindler's Jews today put stones on his grave. If you haven't seen it, you're either living under a rock or you're full of pitiable ignorance. Or, of course, both could be the case.

I'll try to make links out of these tomorrow, but right now, I've got a dystopia and a Winston to catch up with.

movies

Hello losers, winners, and those of you in 2nd place...and apparently, thanks to Megan at http://lablover12.blogspot.com/ , hello to President Bush and his FBI. (Shout-out to Mike at the White House.)

Sorry I haven't posted for almost a week; there just hasn't been too much going on. But a great artist, especially a great writer, can make something out of nothing.

This week turned my crew for the school play into something dismal. What used to be a seemingly vital job--props for Macbeth--has become basketball with the gym teacher. "If you want to join the guys," he says, and play basketball for an hour, the other two girls in Props and Painting and I are welcome to do so. Otherwise, we can just sit there and watch the kids who are actually in the play rehearse. It's only kind of amusing, because the director guy yells so FRICKIN loud whenever he gets a touch angry about something, and then everyone is completely stiff.

It's embarrassing.

pie

I could really go for an apple pie right now. Fresh, hot, crisp, juicy. Know any good recipes?

I made the most stunningly cool drawings for my French homework; this class and teacher are going to worship me. I can see it now--a roomful of seventh- and eighth-graders bowing down to me, the Goddess of Art and All Things Beautiful and Brilliant, as if I am some kind of Allah or something. Plus, of course, the round little teacher left speechless.

Just kidding, I'm not really that egotistical. Only about French. Believe me, I've suffered a blow since getting back my Algebra midterm and discovering I may have a stalker or two.

love,
love me do*

P.S. what do you think of the fact that this has been the first December in 130 years that NYC hasn't gotten any snow?? I think it's pretty insane.

*that's a bad Beatles pun right there if you get it...if you don't please just ignore my quirks

the not-so-pure beauty of lady macbeth

Coming up on the right, ladies and gentlebugs, you will see the Lady Macbeth "poster" that I had to complete this weekend for English. Take a good long look. Contemplate. Consider. And don't forget the snack stand is just below-deck.

It's fabulous, you say? It's simply unbelievable, can that be what I hear? Well, I just hate to disagree with any of God's children, so I'm going to have to modestly accept your overflow of compliments.

I mean, come ON, you gotta say this is COOL.

If you've been here before, you might recognize the left eye. (If you haven't, welcome, and please browse the archives for something you might enjoy.) Yeah, that's the one I drew last month. But I got the right eye by using the Microsoft Paint program, with which one can flip an image horizontally. So actually, what you're seeing is one left eye, even though it might look like two different eyes, a right and a left.

Tell me what you think.

artist's block

I'm having a hard time drawing lately. Nothing good is coming along to be drawn--no extraordinarily beautiful people, no awesome birds because they all went extinct along with the dinosaurs, and no funky trees because I live in suburban New Jersey in the middle of a miserably mild winter (which is very depressing because not only does it show how bad global warming is, but we don't have any cool trees for all our stupid hot weather).

Does anyone have an idea?

With all sincerity,
me, myself and I (and a whole bunch of my split personalities...JUST KIDDING)

the talented artist

Yup, that's me, the talented artist. This time, I have really a lot of new drawings, so I've embedded them in a slideshow on the left, underneath my profile. I hope you enjoy them! I used a new drawing book I got for Christmas called Human Anatomy Made Amazingly Easy by Christopher Hart -- click here to buy and read more about it -- to draw about half of them. Once I got used to the tactics, though, I branched out on my own to create unique pictures.

I've never really been into human features before, so tell me what you think.

By the way, I owe my dad one for scanning these in so fast! Thanks, Dad.

Imaginary Witness

Wow.

I just walked in the door from seeing Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust at the IFC, a stunning theatre in the heart of New York City. This movie portrays the different ways that people have attempted to capture the unimaginable horror of the "Nazi atrocities" that are the Holocaust through film. The most essential point I thought they made was that no one can ever really know how terrible what happened was except for those who were there in the death camps and survived to tell the tale. But these people, as the director (Danny Anker) mentioned in a session after the showing of the movie, are dying fast, and soon there will be none of them left--at which point only the stories captured on film will serve as testimony to this mark in history.

The image with a tomato in the corner is a quote from rottentomatoes.com, a site for movie reviews and honest criticism.

a post about posters...HAHA get it?

I was just thinking about the decoration of my room. The things on my wall are kind of bizarre. I've got a poster up for a lecture by Louise Leakey that I attended in April at the girls' school I used to go to, and for a talk by Sylvia Earle that I went to a year before that, sponsored by the same girls' school's Speakers Series program. Then I have a copy of the Declaration of Independence from an old New York Times and a framed drawing of Happy Bunny signed by Jim Benton from a book signing of his that I went to last year. Rounding out this weird collection, I have a mirror, a calendar where each month is a different black-and-white of Manhattan, and a painting I got last year from the Dumbo Arts Festival, which I go to every year because my aunt is an artist who lives and works in Dumbo.

There really isn't much room on the walls for anything else, save for the bulletin board I've got leaned against the wall on top of my dresser and the bookshelf standing next to my closet door, which takes up only about 6 square feet.

What quirky--or not quirky--stuff do you have plastered on your bedroom walls? (Jeez, this sounds like a prompt you get from school or something...)

the delicate art of show and tell

Here's how it works. I show you this picture by M.C. Escher, and you tell me what you think of it.

This is my last resort to get you snickerdoodlish people to comment before I consent to posting boring articles and frickin' quotes to drag out your opinions.

It can't be as hard as you make it seem. All you have to do is click on the "comments" link and put a few words into the box. Surely I don't have to tell you how to type--if you don't know how to type, well tough luck, I just don't care.

I mean, if you don't know how to comment without forced prompting, we all know how to play "show and tell," at least...right?

more mindless drawings

OK peeps, here are my new drawings.

Actually, I take that back. They're not new, just late. My dad didn't scan them for about 3 or 4 weeks, but I finally bugged him enough this morning to get him to relent and scan them.

Personally, I only like Einstein (the last one...ha on you, I made you scroll all the way down to it), but whichever one you think is good -- or not -- I appreciate feedback, so cough it up, I know you got it.

Peace and pencils, you-know-who

my drawings

Hey guys!

Actually no boys have commented on here yet so I guess I should say girls. And Dad. Thank you for commenting, Dad.

Ahem.

So whoever you are, here are some pictures I drew. Enjoy and respond!