breathe through yr eyes

A Day, Annalemma Mag

I got my copy of Annalemma Magazine and three back issues today, and I was truly pleased with what I’m finding.  The editors note is something worth retyping and spreading over the internet…or so I think.

Lately I’ve been thinking about someone very important to me.  A friend of mine, let’s call him Ian, suffers from Crohn’s disease.  I’ll spare you the details other than to say it’s the worst bowel disease that one can live with.  If you can call it living.  For years Ian has been vacillating between wellness and being bedridden, between possibly getting over his disease and wearing a colostomy bag for the rest of his life.  And, at times, between life and death.

I bring my friend’s story up not to bum you out, but to bring up this point: In the light of unquestionably horrible things like and autoimmune disorders, art and literature can seem pretty damn trivial.  And, in this regard, it is.  

The arts are luxuries that one can only enjoy when survival is ensured.  Sometimes we get caught up in the importance we put upon them and, in doing so, we lose sight of the function they serve in the first place.

All forms of art are a dramatization or an imitation of life as any given human perceives it.  Some of it is good and most of it is bad.  Only a small fraction of it can make your skin become awash with goose pimples and your eyes become pregnant with tears.  But the only reason it can do so is because of how close it comes to the real thing.  It’s easy to obsess over art and literature, to quantify it somehow and see what the creator’s intent was and judge them on how close he or she got to that goal.  But that’s just a diversion from what good art is telling you to do: live your life.  Don’t get caught up in the mechanics or categorization of it.  Don’t make art.  Be it.  Because there are terrible things in the world that can take this ability away at any second, so why would you want to waste any moment of it?

If you’re thinking too much about the past and the future, these concepts you have no control over, you’re going to miss out on the good stuff: right now. Spend it doing something that makes you happy. Needlework, skydiving, holding hands with someone, letting someone bite one of your butt cheeks, whatever. As long as you enjoy it and you’re there in the moment experiencing it like no other person has experienced it before. 

The irony here is that the thing we do to feel alive, to escape the sterile categorization of art and literature, is to create. And it should be mentioned that all the creators we worked with to put this issue together are nothing short of exemplary. 

(Goes on to tell an anecdote about Danny Jones and Jon Paul Douglass, who are featured in the magazine…omitted because you probably don’t have the magazine in front of you. )

Anyways, I found that artist’s pep talk to be thoroughly inspiring.  I hope to write something as good as this in the months to come.

Some Days, Some Photos

I used to write about moments.  One moment that kicked me across the teeth was waiting outside for me at the Hilton in Austin, TX.

So I’m outside of the hotel, thinking about attending a lecture session that would undoubtably add more stress than was necessary for Halloween weekend.  I had been going to important meetings to listen to important people talk, and I hadn’t been doing much except sitting.  I don’t like sitting.

So I’m laying down under a tree, which is when good things happen to me, and I see a man in a blue shirt against the tan of the building.  With three flags in the background, I thought I could make an interesting photo from across the street.

Not my best.  I didn’t like that I couldn’t see his form distinctly, and the view of the hotel wasn’t as interesting as I thought it was.  So I approached closer.

Oh shit, dreaded conversation.  I think this was a small moment of realization for me.  I had been avoiding approaching him, for reasons I probably won’t be able to explain other than: I like the sound of my thoughts and I wouldn’t want to interrupt them with someone else’s.

Oh how I am wrong!  After talking with Frank Coffman, I was convinced to go to his session on Literary Journalism the next day.  He explained that “gonzo” journalism and other more poetic forms of “new journalism” is really old journalism.  In an attempt to bring back some readers, or at least keeping the ones they have, newspaper editors are experimenting with letting their writers be more subjective and non traditional in their style.  A good example would have to be Ernest Hemingway’s Treat ‘em Rough, a WWI era piece that delivered information about what it felt like to participate in war, but didn’t stick to some dry obsession with all the facts.

I can’t say I really like this photograph either, I probably could put the shadows behind his head, or at least done something more…poetic.

But I think this is what I like about journalism, or at least what’s going to keep me enthused about it while I figure out this whole college thing.  To be given the blessing of the realization of my ignorance…that is a real gift.  I can’t stay inside of my head, because sooner or later, it’s going to get stale up there.

I had a couple more moments like this.  This man was from Cameroon, and told me, “If anyone ever tells you that there is another country like America, tell them they’re wrong.”  He says he would have been put in jail for wearing his Halloween costume in his home country.

Everything seems like its changing.

The title of this artwork reads “No Sere Olvidado,” or “I Will Not Be Forgotten.”  The work, by Marie Garza, was displayed at the La Pena art gallery.