she's an open book

Partly due to my love of books and partly due to my extremely neurotic personality, I have been compiling a spreadsheet of every book I have ever read (It was hard to draw the line but I'm including anything literary-ish that I have read since about the 1st grade: The BFG, Island of the Blue Dolphins: IN; Encyclopedia Brown, The Box Car Children #1-50: OUT.) Though I read a lot of magazines and articles (esp with The New Yorker internship), I've refrained from even going there because I might go crazy, but I am thinking of creating a less formal sub-list of really good articles and stories I've read, just for personal reference. (What the book list is for besides personal reference I couldn't really tell you). Besides title and author, my spreadsheet includes type (anthology, non-fiction, play, etc), date it was read (generally the first time if it's been read multiple times), and notes about the book (if I read it for a class, if someone recommended it to me, if I read it in the rain sitting on the edge of the cliff, shaded by trees, in Corsica). Though I'm sure I've missed some, I have a pretty good memory for the things I've read, and my other neurotic tendency to keep all papers I've written (on my computer, I'm not that crazy) and syllabus from classes (ok, some of these are physical copies but I had a colloquium to prepare for!) has helped me a lot. 

So far the list is at about 230, which seems like kind of a meagre number to me--not because I'm being a snob about it, but because I feel that half of who I am, how I see the world, how I interact with others, my general habits, views of humanity, etc. is directly informed by the words and characters I've read and loved. I exist, partly, in between the lines of all the books I've ever read, and I feel like my existence somehow takes up more space than 230 books worth of them.

But that is besides the point of this post. Even though books are about as important to me as food, I rarely ever talk about the books I'm reading, the books I've read. I guess I feel that if I don't write a formal analytical essay on them, it's not worth sharing it. I'm scared to write my personal reaction and thoughts, of what they would reveal of me as a Reader, a title which I hold dearly.

For awhile now, I've had a "currently reading" goodreads widget on the side of this blog. If you click it, you'll get to my goodreads profile, where I've been updating the books I've read and am currently reading. It's not as complete as my spreadsheet, but it's completely up-to-date in terms of the last year or so. I put it there because friends are always asking me what I'm reading and for book recommendations, and the site feels like my own little narrative of my thougths and recommendations that I can share without having to actually say anything about the books.

This is ridiculous, of course. Me giving four stars to Jeffrey Yang's poetry collection, An Aquarium, and two stars to Bolano's The Savage Detectives doesn't tell you anything about my relationship with either of the two books. The fact that two of the books I'm currently reading in the sidebar right now are bright yellow might give you an idea of what my bedside table looks like, or how to pick me out on the subway, but not much more.

So, I'm going to start writing about the things I read. I'm not sure of the format it might take yet-- books as I read them, monthly roundups, flashback fridays for books from the past, maybe all of the above. Some books might get a line, others a page. Whatever the form, the function will be this: to look the books I read in the face and to speak to them, without reservation; to develop my ability to talk about books in different ways; to share with you.

Until then-

While studying for my colloquium has been exhausting, I've never been more in love with language, books, and words, than I am right now-- which is a good thing considering I'll be talking about just that with three professsors for two hours tomorrow. It's a little bit more complicated than that--but not much. My concentration and my colloquium topic, entitled "The Limits and Possibilities of Language," are basically exploring the many properties of language--its function as a tool for expression, as well as opression; its place in politics, in community, in the formation of both personal and national identity. I'm interested in the power of words to manipulate and deceive, as well as their power to evoke, to be beautiful. I'm looking at how language opperates in literature, how authors use it's conventions and often break them to explore deeper questions about meanings, values, society, and history. I look at language as performance, at the way playwrights have wresteled with language on the page as well as in the space of the stage.  I look at how we use language to define ourselves, and how others can use it to define us, too. I look at what happens when people occupy a space in which languages compete for dominance--in families, in school rooms, in colonial remnants. I study all of these things through the long lens of history-- from Homer, to Aristotle, to Shakespeare , to Joyce, as well as the lenses of many disciplines: anthropology, literature, political science, biography. I also examine language outside of texts--in my experiences studying in South Africa, home to eleven national languages, or teaching adult reading and writing classes at the Fortune Society in Queens, a center for adults who have been incarcerated. I look at current politics, at the constantly evolving world of social media. Every article I read, every conversation I overhear--it all seems to be saturated with the topics I've concentrated on in the past four years. It's a little overwhelming to be thinking about narrative and symbolism and empowerment and politics and identity all the time, but its also exciting, and it's exciting to be excited about something so complex yet also as simple as a single word.

In the next few weeks I'll probably put my mind to other tasks: taking photos, making my bed, cooking meals that are more than just variations on the egg. I anticipate a lot of hanging out. But pretty soon my book shelf will be calling to me again--Barthes and Bolano sit staunchly, peering out from behind stacks of less-intimidating short story collections, anthologies, and periodicals, refusing to be overlooked. I've ignored them for some time now, but I'll offer them my bed and my Friday night and I know they'll take me back. Sometimes words are the only thing I've got-- I couldn't ask for better companions.

(My rationale and booklist)

i haven't taken my contacts out for weeks

Probably a good portion of my blog posts consist of me talking about the state of this blog. They generally take the tone of apology, despair, or resolve (usually a combination of the three), combined with solipsistic (not a word, I am aware) guilt for the fact that I keep a blog at all. But my archaic stat counter tells me that even though I am no longer abroad and doing interesting things, a good 20-30 people still come here every week, and I like that I have a place where my scattered, neurotic self can attempt to update and mildly entertain the 10-15 close friends/family members that I know read this.

So there's my disclaimer for the following self-absorbed, obscenely meta post I am about to subject you to.

Lately this place has been dominated by the visual. Even so, there are still hundreds of photos backlogged in my camera, computer, and brain, waiting to emerge. This number pales in comparison, however, to the thoughts and ideas in my head which have yet to find articulation here or elsewhere.

While this semester began with the happy anticipation of a busy, productive schedule and triumphant New York return-- classes, two internships, apartment in Brooklyn, etc., it has since spiraled into a state of physical/mental burnout. This was compounded by/ caused by/ caused a state of intellectual and personal self-doubt, characterized by a paralysis of thought and the inability to find pleasure in things or to be productive or complete any real thoughts or actions. (The incoherence of that sentence is only indicative of what the past few months have been.) I'll admit that this state/cycle is nothing new in my life, and is caused in part by chemical imbalances which are beyond my control and the choices I make which are not.

Gladly, this funk is finally waning, and while I am still teetering on the fine line between defeat and new resolve, I have enough motivation and clarity of mind to write my resolutions here and hope that you hold me to them.

I truly love school and learning, and in four years have hardly ever missed a class or even a lecture. While I am enjoying my final year of undergraduate education, I have reached a point where classes, though invaluable, are also having a detrimental effect on the development of my brain. The strong desire I've always had to read, write, and create has suffered as trying to find a balance between learning and doing has rendered me immobile in both figurative and literal senses.

I have started planning out my life for when I return to New York in January after winter break in South Africa with this fear of immobility in mind. My goals now are these: to finish the last month of this semester with work that I am proud of. Then, to come back next semester and re-evaluate my use of time, making a concerted effort to learn, create, and also live a life not overwhelmed by those two pressures. This will hopefully be accomplished in part by taking two classes and one internship as opposed to three classes and two internships. The classes I'm choosing, too, are in a way a nice bridge between academic life and the real life I hope to enter soon-- a creative non-fiction writing course and a community-based course in which I'll teach English to adult-immigrants in New York.

What it all means: As difficult as this semester has been personally, I really have loved my internships at FSG and The New Yorker, as well as each of my classes. I still love this city, have grown even fonder of Brooklyn, have been making new friends, and making out like a bandit in regard to free books at both my jobs. There are changes that need to be made in order to keep my sanity, however, and the free time I'm working into my schedule for when I return will hopefully give me the physical and mental space to be more deliberate in what I choose to learn, read, and do. Along with that, I hope that I can also start/re-start using this blog as a space not only for updates and tidbits for friends/family, but also as a place to share my efforts in writing/photography/engaging with life and the world.

Given my interests and the way my mind works, it's hard not to think in terms of narrative. While doing so can be a little reductive, it helps a lot with perspective, which is what I seem to be constantly searching for in every place except myself. My own narrative (and the general outline of life of this blog) can be seen in various ways, the most simple being such: girl goes to New York, girl goes abroad, girl returns to New York, girl (like most girls and humans also) struggles with personal identity and grows in leaps and bounds along the way. There is also a narrative that looks like a list of cities, a series of plane and bus tickets which go between California, New York, South Africa, Paris, and dozens of places in between. There is a narrative written in the courses in my transcript, in the list of all the books I've ever read which I neurotically keep, in the thousands of photographs on my computer, in my daily planner, in my dozens of journals, in the structured lines of my resume. There is a narrative written in the various lengths of my hair, in the friends I've made, in the photos on my facebook account, in my ipod, in ticket stubs, in the bookmarks on my browser, in the boys I've encountered and loved, in the decorations on my wall.

I don't know if these narratives tell the same story: it seems both impossible that they can and impossible that they cannot. Separating them as such, it also seems impossible to put them all back together in any cohesive way. At most I can survey them and find complacency in knowing that I exist in them somewhere, my emotions and thoughts safely embedded in their mundane outward appearances. Whatever the case may be, and regardless of discussions about blogs or the internet or my generation, this is a space where I can actively create a narrative of my own to share with you. Thanks for being a part of it.

love and overly-important tones
talisa

attempts at being a blog

I wrote this when I was in Cape Town last year. I don't know how much I like it but I was going through old stuff and thought I'd share.

Power Lines

Begin anywhere. Climb up through the cold steel frames that rise from the dirt, from the grass, from the pavement—glimmering and imposing in the sun. Surge through steady parallel wires—thin and kinked, but sure in their path as they cut through the South African landscape. Soar through a blue sky, uninterrupted except for you, over grassy hills dotted with purple and yellow flowers. Soar over sunken playgrounds rising up from grass, over children swinging high, their stomachs and hearts suspended in the air. Look down as you rush through the sky; see grass that is scattered with shiny bits of broken glass, glimmering amongst tall, uncut blades.

Diverge amongst the wires and find yourself racing in a hundred directions—over the bright, candy colored houses of Bo-Kaap, each street a glossy array of painted dwellings. Race along the water’s edge, following the railroad tracks through sunny, windy, costal towns. Or fly over the vast and empty desert, watching the soil change colors and farmers tend to their cattle as you pass under bright white clouds, low and big in the sky. Pass over flea markets, over vendors selling wooden giraffes and soda can flowers, beaded necklaces and colorful prints. Wind around Table Mountain, shrouded in a wispy blanket of fog. Pass over the single story houses nestled unobtrusively on the side of the mountain in a lush, thriving green. Rush through bustling cities, through financial districts, suburbs, and shopping centers. Pass over taxis swerving through the roads; pass over men at intersections, smiling into car windows at cold faces, at passengers uninterested in their wares. Pass over government buildings, over parliament, over officials, over documents filled with plans, with promises.

Slow down as you make your way over the townships, vast and expansive under a cotton ceiling of clouds. Pass over their patchwork of rusted metal and faded pastels, over houses low and quiet and angry and resigned, growing from the ground, becoming the ground. Pass over horses grazing and stray dogs chasing. Pass over piles of trash and bones, over garments hung and blowing in the wind, meager and unassuming as their colors slowly fade in the sun. Pass over a woman and her child, wide-eyed and slung tight across her back. Pass over school children returning home, their uniforms bright and clean and hopeful.

Surge and pulse over a never-ending landscape, safe in your insulated wires. Find your way across highways and streets, into neighborhoods and homes. Give power to office buildings, tall and looming. Power computers and DVD players. Power flat screen televisions, power X-boxes. Power electric fences. Power cell phones, power kettles. Power hotplates for a family’s one hot meal for the day. Power lights, power heat. Power life.

Begin anywhere—in a night sky, dotted with stars; on a freeway, lit with rows of orange lights. Begin in rolling hills, in flat desert sand, in rich green fields. Begin in city centers, or in small rural towns, in a one-room school house or a prominent university. Begin anywhere and end in the flick of a switch, lighting a room. End in a turn of a dial, starting a stove, or in a push of a button, turning on a radio. Begin anywhere and end in rooms full of laughter and chatter, full of sadness, full of hardship, full of struggle, full of the past, full of hope. Begin anywhere and end everywhere. End in homes, quiet with sleep and the hushed sound of steady breathing, waiting for the morning.

things that i want to tell you about in person

the air guitar championships, the bee gees heavy metal tribute band that opened the championships, the magic of summer movies and picnics in the parks of new york, the project that i have recently started with claire which you will be hearing more about very shortly, the way it feels to sit by the water under bridges on hot but breezy days with trains passing over head and grass under my toes, the strange muscles that are sore now that i've started yoga again, the various whirring sounds in the basement that lull me to sleep at night, the beauty and wonder of dinosaur skeletons, the feeling of anticipation when the lights in the planetarium darkens, right before the stars turn on, the current length of my hair, how much i miss you.

Words instead of Pictures

BERLIN! a semi-detailed account, with no useful information, for no particular reason.* Enjoy/read when bored.
*possibly to delay writing of 10 page paper due tomorrow

Berlin began, or shall we say didn't begin on TUESDAY afternoon. My flight was delayed five hours and then moved from Orly Airport to Charles deGaulle by way of bus and grumbling Germans and Parisians, and indignant Americans who demanded that information be disseminated "Um, in English please?" We touched down in Berlin at 1:30am to the beginning of a STRIKE that left no night buses running. The story of how I came to my lodgings is a long one, but I was extremely grateful to be accommodated by Lissy, Sebastien, Thomas, and their cat, Rosa-- friends of friends. Of friends. Who weren't even expecting me. Lissy is self described via text message as tall, with red hair and a black jacket. She's in the midst of lighting a cigarette and trying to figure out how we're going to get home when a miraculous lone bus pulls through and we run for it, Lissy yelling "C'mon, girl!" as I trail behind with my stuff. The bus drops us of in kind of the middle of nowhere and our feet walking over wooden planks echo as we pass under a bridge and out into a street. Thomas, who was at home sleeping and sick, kindly picks us up. Thomas is young and handsome,with almost androgynous features, bright blue eyes and side parted, slicked light brown hair that belongs to my grandfather's era. He has a shyness to him and is almost stoic as he drives us to the bar where Sebastien works, but his eyes light up as he tries to explain the process of making prosthetic limbs to me, searching for the technical words in English and unabashedly demonstrating on his upper thigh while I ask inane questions like "Is there skin paint? Does it feel like skin?" (Yes and yes, but it is rather expensive.) The bar is large and cozy and quirky and relatively empty. I am treated to a beer and a spliff while Lizzy and Thomas help clean Sebastien clean up for closing. The moment I meet Sebastien I want to be his friend but he feels so far away. He has a slight frame, dark brown hair and stubble and blue, slightly worried eyes. He has a kindness and softness to him paired with a matter-of-factness that recalls harder times. He wears a blue checked shirt rolled up to his elbows and tucked into black pants. I watch him mesmerized as he moves around the bar, washing dishes and counting money, his movements small and deliberate, his arms close to his body. We finally close up and drive home at around 4:30am. By the time we reach the front door at around 5am birds are chirping and the sky is turning a quiet light blue. Sebastien introduces me to Rosa, their black and white cat who I am surprisingly not allergic to. I'm given Lissy's room, who will stay in Sebastien's. As I get ready for bed Thomas peeps in. "I'm going out driving," he says. "I'm too-- what is the word? The opposite of asleep?" "Awake?" I offer. "Yes, that's it." Thomas spent the next few days at his parents' and I didn't see him again. WEDNESDAY. I wake up sometime in the middle of the afternoon to Rosa's meowing and insistent attempts to get me out of bed by walking on me. Lissy's room is its own quirky modern art gallery, as is the rest of the house. Drawn in sharpie on the tiled kitchen wall is a dishwasher with 3 settings, neatly written: A- Clean Dishes, B- Clean Dishes and Put Away, C- Destroy Dishes.We spend a lazy afternoon in and I go out for a walk around the area. In the evening Greta calls. She's a friend of friends here in Paris and has been studying in Berlin. We meet up with some friends to watch the premier of 1st Mai at an open air movie theater in Kreuzburg. The movie comes on the eve of the real May 1st, Worker's Day in Berlin and famous for protests and anarchist vs. police-ness. We sit in the front on wooden hammock-like seats with blue cloth, eating popcorn and drinking wine out of plastic "football" cups. Afterwards we get free beer and pretzels. THURSDAY is May 1st. I go to see Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag. There's a big festival-- breakdancers, music stages where the musicians and audience members are both a little past their prime, lots of meat and donuts and beer. Plastic crates and scraps are a make-shift ride, kids climb it tentatively and roll down a slide of pipes, sitting in a box. I walk around Friedrichstrasse and Oranienberg and make my way to the KW Institute for Contemporary Art. For eight euro you can see the exhibition "When Things Cast No Shadow" at four different museums around the city, pretty neat-o. I head over to Potsdamer Platz and walk over to the second part of the exhibition at the New National Gallery, also very cool. On my way I pass the Sony Center and see a screen full of jellyfish-- an ad for the Zoo Aquarium Berlin! Thank you Sony Center. In the evening I meet up in at Kottbusser Tor in Kreuzburg with a friend, Rosa, from AUP who happens to be in Berlin too. While waiting for her under a bridge- inebriated guy, broken English: "Hi, me and my friends go to a cool bar. A FIRE bar. club. Do you want to come?" "Um..." "I do drugs." "You do drugs??" "I mean, I DON'T do drugs. But I can get you some." Rosa comes. The streets are PACKED for blocks and blocks. The whole area is one music stage after another, from angry rappers screaming "fuck the police," to Rastas to ska bands to electro djs. There is noise and people and SO many cops, a mass of green and blue and bulk and helmets. The air is filled with sirens and bottles breaking and the smell of weed. Glass pads the street like gravel. Sometimes the crowd gets so thick I can barely breathe, Rosa loses her beer in the confusion. All the chaos is definitely crazy but confrontation-wise things are pretty tame. The only cop-exctiement was the end of the night. Rosa and I were trying to catch the last metro and as we were talking towards the station area we came upon a thick wall of polizia, who were blocking off the entire area. Rosa started to take a picture when all of the sudden they all came marching towards us/the crowd very quickly. We turned around and ran and it was quite a rush but they stopped after several yards. We climbed up a fence to get a better view but all for all the drunk belligerent people no one could really get a rise out of them. Or get through. We found a back way to the metro and saw some cops pushing a guy around so we left. Scared-y cats. FRIDAY I went to the Zoo Aquarium Berlin! The word for Jellyfish in German is Quallen. SO MANY jellyfish! It was wonderful. After I went to the Jewish Museum and Checkpoint Charlie (about the Wall). Both really cool if not a little overwhelming. So many stories. In the evening I went to the East Side Gallery (a crumbling stretch of painted wall) and sat along the river bank. Blue sky and silver clouds and warm yellow light. I got in touch with Dakota, one of Greta's friends, and meet up with him and some friends at a German fencing fraternity in a residential area for a BBQ. It's a huge house with a SERIOUS bar-- complete with dark wood paneling, yellow light, tons of benches, tables, stools, rows of glass mugs, beer on tap, and various pictures of past fencing generations that go hundreds of years back. We drink beer (I successfully opened my beer bottles with other beer bottles! huzzah!) and roll cigarettes and it feels like we own the place. I ride the metro home with a new friend, Christina, and come home at 4:30am to Rosa in my bed. On SATURDAY I wake up fairly late. Take a last shower sitting down (Cape Town all over again...) and leave a note goodbye to my flatmates, who I haven't really seen since my arrival. I go to see a wall exhibit at Bernauer, roamed around Berlin and see the last two parts of the KW art exhibition. I make my way to the station and hop on the trusty Eurolines bus for 15 hours of hazy half-sleep. Out the window all I see is green green green. Forests and fields. Sometimes through the trees I see massive patches of yellow, almost neon. Yellow flowers growing in thick squares.

Sea and Space

it's been so long since i've had to come up with any sort of non-school related username that i was a bit paralyzed when blogger asked me for one right away. "don't you want my 'N' number first? how about my date of birth? expected date of graduation?" i wanted to ask.

from what i recall from my old days of AIM and other internet-related activities, these things are supposed to be equal parts witty and poignant, with a possible touch of irony or song-lyric reference. either that, or they are cryptic and alienating, leading readers (me) to believe they must have missed out on some prior conversation/inside joke/ cultural reference. my brilliant plan to evade all of this quickly unravelled when blogger informed me that "talisa" was already taken, and that "talisa-talisa" would be my next best option. as hard as i tried, i couldn't see myself passing off "talisa-talisa" as witty, poignant, cryptic, or alienating, and i haven't heard my name in any songs lately, either.

i ended up choosing rocketships-jellyfish because i've been doodling a lot of both of them in my journal lately (they are pretty easy to draw, and can be made in multiple colors, sizes, and variations, which is convenient when i am carrying several colors of pens and lack the creativity/skill to come up with anything else). they also allow for some pretty nice accompanying doodles: moon, stars, planets, fish, seaweed, underwater castles.... what's more, they are similar in their forms in that the rockets i draw have three exhaust tubes coming out from them, and the jellyfish i draw have three tentacles. this sort of versatility and symmetry is all very convenient, but the icing on the cake is that "rocketships, jellyfish" sort of rhymes, and rolls off the tongue rather nicely.

i could come up with something about how rocketships and jellyfish imply, simultaneously, a sense of ethereal mystery and earthly wonder. how they suggest a longing for what we can't have--the sky and the ocean instead of the land we live on. the beauty of a pitch black water and a pitch black galaxy, the idea of the unknown in both sea and space. ghostly transluscent creatures contrasted with cold metallic vessels. but really, it's all about the aesthetics. both words have a nice assortment of vowel and consonant sounds. also, both words each consist of two words, and the words that make up each of the words would mean completely different things if they weren't next to each other. the rhyme is there, but it's just a little off (sh-i, i-sh), which i like. i also like how the "k" in rocket sort of cuts into "jellyfish," which sounds kind of gelatinous and squishy on its own. i also especially like r and j, pretty solid letters if you ask me. isn't language wonderful?

overall, i guess both explanations are pretty lame and pretentious. i'm just glad i haven't been drawing oranges-- nothing rhymes with that.


*side note: while the inspiration for the title of my internet-journal came from my real journal, that will probably be the only time that those two realms will intersect. being that the internet is public, and my thoughts, emotions, and life are not, the function of this blog will be solely for sharing and updating. if you want the juicy stuff you'll have to call. or steal my journal.