Dickinson

It's a lovely Monday morning, which I surprisingly woke up early for, so I'm in love with today already. Dickinson's been floating around in my head, so why not share some jewels with you, friend?



These are the days when Birds come back --
A very few -- a Bird or two --
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies resume
The old -- old sophistries of June --
A blue and gold mistake.

Oh fraud that cannot cheat the Bee --
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief.

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear --
And softly thro' the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf.

Oh Sacrament of summer days,
Oh Last Communion in the Haze --
Permit a child to join.

Thy sacred emblems to partake --
They consecrated bread to take
And thine immortal wine!

----

I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.
He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth,--the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms.
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.

----

I like a look of Agony,
Because I know it's true —
Men do not sham Convulsion,
Nor simulate, a Throe —

The Eyes glaze once — and that is Death —
Impossible to feign
The Beads upon the Forehead
By homely Anguish strung.

----

Love is anterior to life,
Posterior to death,
Initial of creation, and
The exponent of breath.


Take that and linger on it. Enjoy the day!

What's Up, Clock?

These photographs by Rune Guneriussen rub me the right way. And I love his name....maybe I should name my second daughter that. Sage and Rune. I'm liking that.





If I was to do a photo exposition right now, I'd do it on clocks. Clocks are such interesting devices. Especially antique clocks, ones with a history.

All That Jazz

I've always had an affinity for relics of the past, whether they be in a museum or my closet. I'm currently having a mad love affair with 1920s dresses. If I had the money, I'd wear one every day like it was no big thing.










Maybe one day.

Foto Friday

Merry Go Round, Merry Go Round

If you happened to catch my discovery of those swimming pools that had fallen into a state of disuse upon one of my earlier posts, you'll no doubt notice with this post I have a penchant for abandoned arenas. This deserted South Korean theme park is equally haunting.









Spooky. Surreal. Love.

To the Castle

I want to live in these castles created by Ann Wood. How magical and creative, and a great way to recycle cardboard!



Take a look at Ann's world.

I would like to have a moat around my castle, with fish that have scales like this:

Just Plain Weird.

Lots of people love them...



But they freaking creep me out, man. They're like garden gnomes for the fashionably conscious.

For those not in the know, I'm talking about Blythe Dolls.

Brevity

Sometime, the construction workers mixed glitter in with the sidewalk's cement, considered Blair Abernathy. It glimmered as she walked down the street studying the craftsmanship. As whimsical a thought, it wasn't a trump enough for her disenchantment. Her taste buds tingled with the sting of vodka. Her general passe blase was inexplicable to the common passerby, often misconstrued as a fashionable apathy of Los Angeles.

Arriving at the yellow apartment complex, she understood the orange tree stooped with mandarin earrings. It was the only decoration for an otherwise plain yard. Cement blocks spread over the small square of dead grass forcing up some sort of concrete necropolis. Or maybe it was where her landlord put the dismembered bodies of his victims who didn't pay rent. Landlord was the contradiction of stench and starched shirts. Blair couldn't decide as to whether he was a serial killer or liked little girls. The landlord plot was fun upon moving in three years ago. Who doesn't want to live with a psychopath in the same building? This last year when she saw him in the hall, though, a nod was all worth giving up. All else was understood. It wasn't any fun to think about it. Formalities were shot. And with common acknowledgment came the waning of any significance of really, just anything, and was lost on the smog of the skyline.

Occasionally she'd step up onto the roof to watch Hollywood on its knees.

The Pink Crucifix Known Only As "Pregnant"

This blog is geared towards things that pique my curiosity, and lately, the meaning of dreams have been doing such. I try not to make this blog a personal one, but I can't help it for this material. For three days in a row I have had dreams of being pregnant. Very pregnant. Eight months pregnant. I have read Freud's Interpretation of Dreams and although I am not a fan of the man's work, it was interesting.

Dreams of pregnancy often cite the birth of a new project or the manifestation of creativity in one's life, of new beginning. It is not surprising I have been having such dreams since lots of new beginnings are occurring for me, such as starting out in a new apartment with four wonderful new roommates, I'm always and constantly working on a new film project or fiction, and with school starting up on September 25th, a new year is right around the corner.

By this channel, we are venturing into more Carl Jung territory. Jung differs from Freud in that the inconscious is not mainly a primal, instinctual persona but also a spiritual one. Dreams to him were ways of getting to know one's unconscious. There are basic characters and archetypes repetitive in Jungian terminology present within dreams: hero, monster, mother, father, mandala, sacrifice and the mask.


Above: a mandala

But this post isn't about psychobabble, or the figurative geography we apply to the potential symbolic imagery present in our dream life. This post is about experiences women have had about pregnancy and dreaming.

I came across several women online who said pregnancy dreams haunted them after having an abortion. Three women blogged, claiming their pregnancy dream did in fact predict a bun in the oven. Not enough to make me really think twice about it. Pregnancy dreams are interesting though. I don't really buy the whole new beginning thing. Sure we are metaphorical creatures, but it takes a lot of energy expenditure for our minds to configure the twilight cinema known as nocturnal dreaming. I remember having strange dreams as young as 6, way prior to be able to symbolically accept things. I think there is something else afoot, which brings me to my next phenomenon. Not that it's talked about much, but it has certainly happened to me. When I was around 11, I had a dream of visiting a barn. When I was 16, I actually came across this barn in reality. Never had I been exposed to a picture of this barn, never had it been talked about, nothing. So what gives?

The Absence of Water

There is something so eerie and yet beautiful about these photographs of pools in the UK that have fallen into a state of disuse. 






Source: Gigi Cafali's collection "Absence of Water"
Check out her website!

Boo! Ghosts? No, Infrasound.

You're in a house that you have been told is haunted. You walk into the room you think just might be the place where the event went down. Standing upright, you waver a bit in the dark, offput a little but still with resolve. Suddenly, chills crawl up your back and almost instantaneously you see a gray figure in your periphery. What just happened? What could possibly explain what you just experienced? Supernatural? Or just...natural?

The answer quite is just that...natural. In the form of inaudible, low-frequency sound waves known as Infrasound.

Now wait a second, sound waves can make you hallucinate, Randall? Come on! That doesn't even make sense. Oh but wait, it will.

Infrasound, as experienced in various experiments before, can cause a curious culmination of physical effects such as tingling on one's backside, curling of the gut, or even a rise in emotions such as panic (alerting fight-or-flight). Infrasound also has been reported to result in visual hallucination, whether it be blurring or even vibration of the eye. Peripheral vision in general is naturally very sensitive to any sort of movement evolutionarily (predators sneaking up from the side?). Also, lots of the places that are deemed "haunted" don't have furniture or other materials to absorb the sound waves, which makes sense as to why these reports of ghosts are often "localized" in certain rooms, chambers and hallways. Infrasound often "pools" in one area. Like I said before, Infrasound can signal the fight-or-flight response, which involves reducing the blood to extremities, which could explain "chills," a "racing heart" and overall "unease."

So next time you are taking a tour of a haunted place in say, England, look around. Is there any furniture? Are there lots of windows? Just some things to think about. And if you do become one of the "lucky ones" to actually experience a haunted manifestation, remember that there is a high chance what you are experiencing is Infrasound.

Boo to that!