lucas -- journal

february 26th, 2010, 2:36 pm

flux in the æther.

p.s. <3

christmas is only ten months away
i think it can still be just like norman rockwell—
cloud cult, “rockwell”

february 20th, 2010, 2:23 pm

but there’s someone i’d like to see
she never mentions a word to me
she reads leviathan

i think i’ll head home
midlake, “head home”

idyllic or suicidal?

february 4th, 2010, 6:32 pm

—and now time is my time
time is my own and i feel so alive yet feel so alone
‘cause you know you’re the one
and that that hasn’t changed—
spoon, “anything you want”

hello, from uncompahgre national forest, the atlantis of my time.

december 8th, 2009, 2:26 am

i am leaving to go live in my mind.

bye!

july 27th, 2009, 4:03 am

i went walking through the city
like a drunk, but not
with my slip showin’ a little
like a drunk, but not
and i am one of your people
but the cars don’t stop
and i am one of your people
but the cars don’t stop
it’s been a long time since before i’ve been touched
now i’m gettin’ touched all the time
and it’s only a matter of whom
and it’s only a matter of when—
regina spektor, “dance anthem of the eighties”

july 26th, 2009, 12:02 am

i have finalized my master’s thesis committee. i now have a schedule that will result in my m.s. being awarded, a paper being submitted to a journal for publication, and applications being sent out—all in december. then i’ll get about seven months of time off from school. i hope to travel away from north america, but i’ll probably have to get some kind of job during that time as well.

my darkroom is complete! i have purchased an archival print washer. this was the one thing that my darkroom was truly lacking. now i can properly produce archival-quality fiber-based gelatin-silver prints. i have recently upgraded from a beseler 35 enlarger to a beseler 67 dichro enlarger. this is a welcome change—in the future, i’ll be able to work with medium-format film. also, i no longer have to deal with multi-grade filters.

just as i am getting the last tools for my darkroom, i am realizing that this art may not be for me. i think i’m too much of a perfectionist for photography. the slightest imperfection with an exposure drives me crazy. perhaps my darkroom will simply become my torture-chamber.

also, all of this photography business is very far from cheap. cameras, lenses, film, paper, chemicals, darkroom equipment, water, water, water—and what about dry-mounting and matting? my silly little binder of photos certainly isn’t very presentable. maybe i should have stuck with a point-and-shoot digital camera and a web page to display my photos.

my progress with anna karenina has slowed. i’m about half-way through the book. but i’m still enjoying it very much, and i do plan on finishing it.

[...] the joyful terror of the nearness of his happiness communicated itself to him.
tolstoy, anna karenina, 404

i think tolstoy is generally over-optimistic. at the same time, i could just be premature in my judgement. it may not end like this.

He saw only her clear, truthful eyes, frightened by the same joy of love that filled his heart. Those eyes shone nearer and nearer, blinding him by their light of love. She stopped up close to him, touching him.
ibid.

tolstoy sets up little challenges for his characters, but they all prevail each time. the story is just a cluttering of propped-up straw men. while he spends time on his kitty and dolly and anna, helping them fight their weak foes, he does as least acknowledge something greater.

She could not understand how lofty and inaccessible to her it all was, and she should not have dared to mention it.
ibid., 399

i’m glad that tolstoy recognizes something grand that can only be fouled by spoken language. he also mentions other things that are very important to me personally, including a peculiar urgency.

When Kitty had gone and Levin was left alone, he felt such anxiety without her and such an impatient desire to live quickly, the more quickly, till tomorrow morning [...]
ibid, 398

but i’ll stop here. if i were to work my way backwards to the very beginning of his novel, this entry would certainly be four-hundred pages itself. all i intended to say originally is that, yes, the loftiness exists and is beautiful, but the real world doesn’t work in such a way.

july 9th, 2009, 11:12 pm

this is a successful week. the nights are rough, but the days are pretty good.

don’t say you’ll leave me
‘cause i know you won’t leave me
you know it took years for you to stay

i don’t love you to death
but i’d die if you left
beulah, “night is the day turned inside out”

june 23rd, 2009, 5:04 pm

i have a few more quotes from lolita before i move on to quoting anna karenina.

[S]he stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power.
nabokov, lolita, 17

I knew she would [...] even close her eyes as Hollywood teaches.
ibid., 48

Distant mountains. Near mountains. More mountains; bluish beauties never attainable, or ever turning into inhabited hill after hill [...]
ibid., 156

[...] how much she looked—had always looked—like Botticelli’s russet Venus—
ibid., 270

lolita‘s romanticism is amazing.

june 4th, 2009, 1:05 am

i suppose this is where bettina becomes the anti-hero:

Most likely the letter was doomed simply to lie in a box without consequences. But what matter; I’m sure she would keep it all her life as a treasure, as her pride and justification, and now, at such a moment, she remembered the letter and brought it out to take naive pride before me, to restore herself in my eyes, so that I, too, should see, and I, too, should praise. I said nothing, pressed her hand, and walked out.
dostoyevski, notes from underground, 106

may 26th, 2009, 11:32 pm

i just finished nabokov’s lolita. during chapter 29 of part ii, i had the continuous urge to throw the book against a wall, hoping that it would shatter into pieces. this doesn’t mean that i disliked the book—in fact, it is one of the best i’ve read.

—and I looked and looked at her, and knew as clearly as I know I am to die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else.
nabokov, lolita, 277

april 23rd, 2009, 6:34 pm

i am such a lucky mess.

i’m going snowshoeing and camping this weekend.

then i’ll sleep in my clothes and wait for winter to leave.

april 23rd, 2009, 1:09 am

yes, we were in the same place. but we were looking in different directions! you were looking at the tree while i was consumed by the immaculate rolling green hills.

perhaps there is still some room in my life for idealism. for love. for her.

torture chambers?
god damn!
i haven’t heard no shit like that in years!
edan, “murder mystery”

april 5th, 2009, 5:16 pm

i’ve calmed down, thankfully. if it wasn’t obvious, i’ve been pretty upset for the past few days.

as this semester ends, i’ll say farewell to coursework forever (or until i begin a doctoral program). i like the structure of classes, but i look forward to directing myself toward my specific interests. beginning in may, i will be concentrating all of my efforts on completing my master’s thesis. there are only 4.5 weeks between myself and the completion of these courses.

this year, i plan to take my first trip over the sea. this is a welcome experience. as i work on my coursework and thesis, my anticipation of such a trip will surely continue to build.

april 4th, 2009, 12:49 pm

tell me ‘bout your love affairs
tell me ‘bout your moral resignations

oh oh oh
oh oh oh oh
oh oh
oh oh

tell me ‘bout your love affairs
i want to know all the lurid details

oh oh oh oh oh
oh oh oh oh oh
oh oh oh oh
oh oh oh oh

i want to die today
and make love with you in the grave

i want to die today
and make love with you in the grave

oh oh oh
oh oh oh
oh oh oh oh all day

oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

bam bam bam bam
bam bam bam bam
bam bam bam bam
bam bam bam bam
bam bam bam bam
bam bam bam bam
bam bam bam bam
bam bam bam bam
bam

is this love of ours a lie?
is it killing me alive?

is this love of ours a lie?
is it chemically derived to ascertain

and sequester the pain?

ah ah ah ah ah ah

is this love of ours a lie————?
the unicorns, “les os”

two years ago, only part of this song was relevant. now all of it is necessary.

april 4th, 2009, 12:00 pm

i have rid my car of all music except for one cd. that cd has one song on it—the song from which i quoted lyrics in my last post.

and i heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts
and i looked and behold—a pale horse
and its name it said on him was death
and hell fought with him
cash, “when the man comes around”

or,

And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, Come / And I saw, and behold, a pale horse: and he that sat upon him, his name was Death; and Hades followed with him.
revelation 6:7-8

april 2nd, 2009, 3:08 pm

what have i become, my sweetest friend?
everyone i know goes away in the end
and you could have it all—my empire of dirt
i will let you down
i will make you hurt
cash, “hurt”

april 2nd, 2009, 8:55 am

you will be broken and buried.

just to clarify:

A person may conceal himself behind his image, he can disappear forever behind his image, he can be completely separated from his image: a person can never be his image. It was only thanks to three mental photographs that Rubens telephoned the lute player after not having seen her for eight years. But who is the lute player in and of herself, outside her image? He doesn’t know much about that and has no desire to know more. I can see their meeting after eight years: they sit facing each other in the lobby of a big Paris hotel. What do they talk about? About all sorts of things, except the life they are both leading. For if they know each other too intimately, a barrier of useless information would pile up between them and estrange them from each other. They know only the barest minimum about each other, and they are almost proud of having concealed their lives in the shadows so that their meetings will be lit up all the more brightly, divorced from time and circumstance.
kundera, immortality, 328

so now that you understand why you must be buried—goodbye.

march 27th, 2009, 12:05 am

there’s too much beauty. i can’t stand not possessing it all. yet here i’ll remain at a distance, smiling like a madman.

i will love you forever.

march 19th, 2009, 12:49 am

and i finally realized the greatness of these lyrics:

you own me
there’s nothing you can do
you own me
lucky you

you clean yourself to meet
the man who isn’t me
you’re putting on a shirt
a shirt i’ll never see
the letter’s in your coat
but no one’s in your head
cause you’re too smart to remember
you’re too smart
lucky you
the national, “lucky you (daytrotter session)”

i’m beginning to look at creation in my own light.

march 17th, 2009, 7:43 pm

i began reading sylvia plath’s ariel today. it’s incredibly dense and difficult for me, but it’s amazing nonetheless.

my cotoneaster trees are shrouded in flowers.

so come on now; don’t make me cry
everything you say has water under it
...
gonna be a blank slate, gonna wear a white cape—don’t over-do it
the national, slow show (demo)

there are serious lessons about reality around here.