havana before castro: when cuba was a tropical playground

Currently listening : Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven By Love and Rockets Release date: 2000-06-05

8:37 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

the so-called celebrity doppelgangers - for alexandra

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Lost relatives - Free genealogy

6:18 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

scented, i am.

i am obsessed with this dutch company - PEOPLE OF THE LABYRINTH! they make the best smelling perfume which is gracing my more tender parts, currently. it smells of anise, leather, vanilla undercurrents, & perhaps cardamom? catching the scent of myself, i feel that i am dancing a tango through the mossy cobblestones of an escher library with borges.

thank you, heather, for my latest vial!

11:05 PM - 6 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

my eloquence is shocking.

i was trying to brave the near noon sun down hollywood blvd. - without sunscreen, d'oh! - when i realized that i should just catch a bus. of course, two viable buses pass me by. the comfortable, shaded (and often shady) passengers seemingly laughing in my face, waving middle fingers as train platform handkerchiefs.

i was two blocks from normandie and was keeping pace with a dark horse pulling up from the rear. it was a metro red. yes! score! (small victories can be key.)

as i was hauling happy ass toward the bus, i looked down to notice that my boob had liberated itself from my sun dress & said tit had been merrily bounding about.

when i approached the door after retuckage, the bus driver smiled at me & said, "well, i sure have to let you on the bus. where you going, little lady?"

niiiiiiiiiiiiice.

no, he didn't let me ride for free. coldblooded, that one.

Currently listening : 99% By Meat Beat Manifesto Release date: 1990-12-29

1:38 PM - 6 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

independent shakespeare co. summer schedule

for easy reference!



i cannot recommend their productions more!

Currently listening : The Very Special World of Lee Hazlewood By Lee Hazlewood Release date: 2007-08-27

1:52 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

jodorowsky saves the day & my mood!

Many people know nothing of koans, and even those who do know not accord them their essential importance. A koan is a question that a Zen master gives to a disciple who is then to meditate and reflect upon it and (sometimes immediately, sometimes years later) offer a response. A koan is an enigma that holds a fundamental absurdity, for it is impossible to reply to one by using logic. And this is precisely its purpose: to open our initial point of view to the universal so that we understand that the intellect (words, words, words, and still more words) is useless in helping us find a response. In fact, we do not really live in the world; we live in language. We think that we are intelligent because we can manipulate ideas and that things become known and real because we are able to define them – but if we really want our life to change, we must undergo a mutation of the mind, opening the doors of intuition and creative energies so that our unconscious becomes an ally.

+ the spiritual journey of alejandro jodorowsky, the creator of el topo

5:09 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

a letter to my grandfather

dear grandpa,

first, i wanted to say how much i enjoyed spending time with you when i was home. it is always a pleasure to discuss random topics & philosophies with you. i value our time together & always have sine i was a little girl.

now, how to continue? there are many avenues i could pursue in this letter, so forgive me if the narrative makes little sense...

i have to confess that when my mother & father first called to relay the news regarding your decision to cease chemo, i was heartbroken & inconsolable. how can i lose my grandfather? my grandmother, her husband? my mother, her father? it is selfish of me to feel this way. afterall, who knows what follows this lifetime - the first act? i have faith that whatever it is, it is a true relief.

you are such a brave, intelligent, compassionate, humble, loyal, giving, & singular man.

i am not sure if it was ever a part of your implicit intent, but through your actions these past four years you have greatly diminished my fear of death & have confirmed the overall importance of family, dignity, and respect. you face your sickness with philosophy & meditation.

there are so many memories of you & i that i will forever cherish: the sumerian lion at the art history museum that you let me pet when no one was looking; your own childhood stories about the water tower in eden park that i always found so mysterious & medieval; you showing me your renaissance & philosophy books from college; driving through indian hill with you under the tree-canopied streets; you doing back flips off of the diving board at phillip’s; playing ping pong & volleyball with you; your puns!; & how happy i was to have you at my graduations & at our wedding.

i love you with all my heart and hope that i have made you proud in doing my best to follow the principles you imparted to me. i have faith that we will see each other again.

i promise to look out for grandma & to call her often. you know how dear she is to me.

you have been the ideal family man, not only providing a model of action to our immediate family, but also to everyone who knows you. my father calls you his father & the best man he has ever known. i agree.

i never meant to upset you with this letter & hope that i have not. i lacked the composure to say these things to you during our recent visits. i just want you to know how honored and blessed i feel to be your granddaughter & how proud of you for your continued positivity in the face of ailment & the unknown.

in closing, know that i am a product of you & i am very happy for that. you have instilled in me a passion for learning; taught me to question all source of information; & inspired me to pursue anything i have desired.

why should i say goodbye when it isn’t?

love always, your granddaughter,
t.

2:49 PM - 6 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

in which the author presents the reason for her mercurial mood status

perhaps you have known me for four years, maybe you have not? regardless, if we have met more than a few times (say, six to ten nights or lunches) you will have heard me speak about my grandfather, donald albert bisher.

sparing you the sound bite, dr. philiian details, when i was growing up my grandparents played an intrinsic role in my character development. that statement reads cold & analytical to me, but i don't want to divulge into an emotional odyssey & cry at amoreena's computer. in summary, my grandfather took me to the museums of cincinnati four times a month, imparted to me our family history, instilled in me a sense of history, helped me appreciate art history, roman history, and meditation at the young age of eight, put himself through night college to obtain a degree in philosophy in his early forties with a family to raise, and provided me with an early ibm at his & my grandmother's house with which to write my first fantasy novel on floppy disk. his tenacity for all of the diverse spheres of knowledge & his evident conviction for the intersection of all cultures has played a heavy role in the development of my personality. he is, in short, one of my heroes.

during the christmas of 2002, when i was contemplating leaving the doctoral program at ucla, when my long term relationship with my boyfriend was disintegrating, i came home to have my parents tell me that he had colon cancer. the tumor was 23 cm and the doctors advised him against surgery, instead opting for chemo. even in the path of this challenge, my grandfather remained optimistic & took on this disease with the utmost positivity. he reduced his tumor to 4 cm through an act of meditation & faith. two years later the doctors said he was okay.

shortly after, he discovered that he had spots on his liver and would have to continue a type of "maintenance chemo". he asked his doctors to suspend his treatment so that he would be able to attend my wedding with seamus without pain. he was tired for the duration of the trip, but at our wedding he roused the strength to dance to dub reggae. it was wonderful.

now, last friday, my mother informed me that regardless of his top-of-the-line treatment regiment, my grandfather's cancer has spread. it infects his lungs & his bones.

it is due right to opt to cease chemo & he has decided as such. he deserves a quality of life that each human is privy to. rather than feel sick for the remainder of his days, my grandfather will live his life to the fullest & die in a state of grace.

though i understand this logically & accept this with my heart, i am in a state of duress.

i have the chance to see him at the end of this week & will cherish these future moments.

in respect of him, please keep my grandfather in your thoughts.

his bravery in the face of sickness is inspiring. i may lose him physically to cancer, but he will always be here, ever present in my life convictions.

thank you for reading this. i wanted to put into words, so that some of you i have not spoken to explicitly will understand what is happening now in my life.

best,
tricia

1:22 AM - 4 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!
Current mood: insubordinate

tomorrow - demonstrate the power of the vote & exercise your rights.

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_ppl.htm

use this page to find your polling location.

no excuses! they will only lead to our culture's further decline. let's reclaim our voice!

6:20 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

plague pocked with postmarks! or, why our heads will hang as trophies
Current mood: eccentric

this entry is coming soon, as it must wait until lunch.

an entry in which i describe the dream i had last night - once again being chased by scientologists.

note to self: don't forget to mention the manuscripts made of shellacked manna & square halos of gold leaf; the water in colorado seaming bright gold at the river bank, electroplated.

...

it all began when a package, plague pocked with postmarks, appeared in our mailbox. forwarding hands pointed every which direction. the book-sized parcel was addressed to me in an unrecognized, formal hand; the brown butcher paper was worn at edges' crease; the boldest postmark was from camden.

in the living room i proceeded to open it. it was a moleskine notebook riddled through with tiny notes, diagrams, equations both numeric & verbal; the hand matched that on the packaging. it was professorial & continental?


folded & stuffed near the center of the notebook was a group of papers near papyrus. they were equally as ephemeral - i had the intuition (or, was it described for me by the mystery professor) that the pages were carefully shellacked manna - fine layers upon layers, onion skins patina'ed with some sort of resin. i knew that they were sacred documents at once, that they resembled the 12th century biblical commentaries with which i spent most of my early adult life. illuminated illustrations, a litany of strange saints with square haloes crowded the head of the paper. a textual formatting which i didn't recall.

a note attached to these informed me that these were stolen pages from the ur-books of scientology. the mysterious sender wrote that he had come upon these in a most surreptitious way, that he was sending these to an unknown me for safety purposes, to keep them safe, that the pages were highly desired & would be hunted after by the cult. there were emails, too, taken from the highest leaders' accounts; in fact, a few were from tom cruise's own email.

of course, i don't recall the specific words (though in some dreams i do find myself coherently reading line for line) but i do remember the sense of urgency to hide the pages & myself.

seamus & i at once set off from our house. we felt an immediate sense of threat and fear. we rented a car and set out east, far from our off franklin avenue apartment & the scientologists' "celebrity center" - what we like to call castle l. ron.

we drove for an indiscriminate amount of time, passing through the western states. desolate deserts & browned out motels, we signed our names differently each time leaving no discernible pattern of temporary residence.

in colorado we encountered our first problem. fifty miles outside of cruise's luxe fortress, roadblocks had been set up. lines of cars trickled through routine checks by blank eyed cops; trunks and backseat floorboard detritus were checked for "mysterious packages". thank god i had taken the proper measures the night before and sliced open the upholstery in the passenger's seat, stuffing the notebook in between layers, carefully sewing the fabric to hide any contraband.

we pulled into the checkpoint, presented our i.d., listened to the rote explanation as to why we should relinquish our rights to a search. the cops let us through, but it was late & no motels or fast food streaked exits were visible. a temporary campground for travelers had been set up as the colorado wild was all that spread before us.

other couples, families, etc. were sleeping at a site abutted to the river. seamus & i exited the car and created makeshift blankets. i brought the notebook and placed it tightly under my winter jacket pillow. i was nervous, of course, but saw no other option.

we woke to commotion – others rising, cops everywhere & decided to walk over to the river to freshen up and remove ourselves from the din. thinking that we would wash ourselves in the water, lose ourselves in the anonymity of the mob, i noticed the others in the water becoming ill, shaking, convulsing. the water was seaming electric at the bank, ripples were shining gold. somehow i knew that this gold was the same filigree of which the manuscripts' haloes were formed. i knew not to go into the water, that it was charged, dangerous, poison, something. this was un-nature at its finest.

our hesitancy gave us away to the watchers. we had identified ourselves as the aware & so doing rendered ourselves vulnerable. within minutes the chatter had spread among the cops. they began toward us deliberately & we gathered up as naturally as possible for the escape.

once again in my dreamscape we had become the hubbard hunted. the absolute dread i experienced as this reverie played out – even after waking several times throughout the morning & returning to sleep – was real, complete fight or flight. & eventhough i often dream in color with every sense available & true there are a few dreams that remain so shockingly real that they are elevated to the level of the sur-real.

fin.

Currently listening : Crooklyn: Music From The Motion Picture (Volume 1) By Buckshot and Masta Ace the Crooklyn Dodgers feat. Special Ed Release date: 10 May, 1994

1:26 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment