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September 27, 2005
starship enterprise
My talented friend Becca makes really cool bags and scarves and pins and other goodies. After a lot of hard work, she opened up her site for business tonight. I suspect these creations aren't going to last long. I mean, what stylish young lady wouldn't want this bag? To think that there are only four available! Make that three, because I just ordered one. I'm having trouble keeping myself from buying most of her other bags, too, but I'm not going to because she told me I wasn't allowed. Anyway, I honestly don't think she needs my plug, but I'm excited to share this cool stuff with you, so here I am doing it.
September 18, 2005
family dynamic
Outside, on the porch of the beach house, each member of my family is reading a section of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Earlier this morning, before anyone else was around, I'd read what I'd wanted to from the paper, made a pathetic go at the Times crossword, and finished the book I'd brought. So I was done with the porch for awhile. A few minutes ago, though, I went back out there to eat a bagel and got to hear a conversation that captures certain aspects of everybody pretty tidily:
DAD: Does anyone else think that Tim Burton is slightly nutty?
CHRIS: I think everyone does.
MOM: What.
DAD: I think Tim Burton is crazy.
MOM: Who's Tim Burton?
CHRIS: A director.
MOM: Of?
CHRIS: Movies.
They all return to what they're reading, and I go back inside to write this.
September 13, 2005
creating space
I started my watercolor class last night (at the newly rebranded Parsons The New School for Design — it's actually called that now, and that 1990s Raygun-influenced grunge logo is everywhere; what were they thinking?), and I think I'm going to like it, if for no other reason than that I'm guaranteed two hours of painting time every week.
Something I know I won't like about it is that the room is one of the least friendly art spaces imaginable, a concrete box with flourescent lighting and no windows. The acoustics are also very bad in there. Art classes at Archmere and at Villanova were held in at least semi-romantic, paint-splattered spaces. I have a memory of sitting upstairs in the Archmere art building on a winter's day after school and feeling unspeakably cozy and content. It's almost hard for me to think of anything nicer than to work on art projects in a large, warm, window-lined room as the sun starts to set.
In class I was thinking about my friends who have studio spaces. I wonder whether they find that the atmosphere there helps or hurts or doesn't affect their work at all. It probably doesn't have much of an effect on the product, but I'm sure whatever their spaces are like does influence their mood somewhat when they're there. I've thought of renting a studio for art before, thinking that maybe I'd make more art if I were paying for a space in which to make it. But I know it wouldn't affect my output, and really, much of what I enjoy about painting is that I get to make something in my living room with a glass of wine in one hand.
In honor of my watery new endeavors, I've started a new section of my site: http://dorkist.com/artwork. It's using a standard Movable Type template right now, but I'll fix that when I get around to it.
September 06, 2005
it's a beach house!
With Labor Day weekend came my family's first opportunity to stay in the new beach house my parents just bought. That whole huge thing you see above isn't all ours; the building is split into a front and back section. Anyway, I didn't do much of anything, aside from read and lounge and help buy a TV, and it all felt wonderful. I'm trying to suppress a guilty feeling about getting to share in a thing that I didn't earn, as well as a separate guilty feeling about being priveleged in general, but for now it isn't too hard, because I'm excited.
It's difficult to describe how awesome it is to know that I can get on a bus and arrive at this nice quiet place in just a few hours. I'd been lamenting the fact that I haven't taken a "real" vacation this year, but I think I know what the solution to that might be now. I can go to this house! I have already begun fantasizing about how each day would go. I'd wake up, exercise, read, and write. I'd walk down the street at lunchtime and buy a hoagie, sometimes Italian, sometimes tuna, and I guess turkey at least once. At night I'd watch movies.
This is as much as I can say about it right now, because I've detected in myself a lack of humor and cleverness today. I was just creating a photo gallery of the house for you to enjoy, and I realized midway through that my captions were really dull. Whatever. You don't care.
At some point, if my dad lets me, I'll host a small, refined party at the house. Maybe you'll be there!
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