Today I was driving home from the store and going through a neighborhood. I saw some guy out washing his car and immediately my first thought was, "Now it's going to rain tomorrow. I'd better not wash my car." What is it with people and the fear of washing their cars because of the anticipation of rain?!
I have a theory!
Humans are either one of two things. They either plan so much that it becomes impossible to get anything done. Or they have such a fear of negative outcomes that nothing is ever accomplished. Either way, it's hard to get things done. I've been putting off washing my car for at least two weeks because I've been afraid it will rain (which it has twice by-the-way!). So yeah, I'm pleased that I didn't do that work for nothing but I'm also kind of peeved because my car is still filthy!
Moral of the story is not that I want some kind soul to come wash my car (hint hint, wink wink). Seriously though, it's one of my random thoughts with a little bit of a point at the end. Like the videos they show in seminary classes. Fear holds people back whether we know it or not. And until you get over that fear, not much gets done.
Goal of the week: Wash my car and get over the fear!
This is totally an Emma inspired post. I've been dying to post for a while but I haven't finished any books lately (shame on me)! So I stole from my friend's blog and decided to do a bit of a follow up from my discussion on William Fitzsimmons. As much as I think that literature and art go hand in hand, I also have to believe that music is a part of this three-some.
"The Old Guitarist" by Pablo Picasso has reminded me of the songs "Find it in Me" and "Northern Downpour" by William Fitzsimmons and Panic! at the Disco respectively. For me, one is not complete without the other. I even have this poster hanging in my room. Most people think it's creepy or weird. But I see it as part of a definition for these songs. The struggling artist overwhelmed by the emotions of life has no choice but to do what he knows. Cliche? Yes. But true for me? Most definitely.
But that is not all...
"The Garden of Earthly Delights" by Hieronymus Bosch has always reminded me of "Alice in Wonderland." It's not even that they have the same themes or anything like that. Basically....it just looks like a trippy place to go. Wonderland? I would say yes. Now look over to the right panel, just above center. What's that? An egg man? I am the eggman. He is the eggman. I am the walrus... Okay, it's a stretch but I've heard somewhere before that the eggman mentioned in the song "I am the Walrus" by The Beatles is the eggman in this painting. Possible? Yes. Likely? Goo goo gajoob. (That means I haven't the foggiest.)
So now do you see how art, literature, music, and really any form of creative media are all intertwined? Exciting,isn't it? So next time you see a painting maybe take a moment to wonder, "How has this influenced other things I enjoy?" That's all I have for now so I'll leave you with this final thought.
....... "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller? It's a Wonderful Lifewith James Stewart?? "The Weight" by The Band?!
Yes. The creative process is life. Constantly making way for new interpretations, ideas, feelings, and "overflow of emotion." It is all one work for us to sort through and connect with until we believe we are like this and are part of more than we even know.
Apparently I've been a little "blog hungry" yesterday and today so here I am posting again.
One of my music obsessions for the past couple of years, thanks to one of my friends, has been William Fitzsimmons. He's a singer/songwriter from Pennsylvania whose first CD "Until When We are Ghosts" came out in 2005. My favorite song by him, "Find it in Me," is from this album.
I got on to google today and what did I discover? It is Frida Kahlo's birthday! Kudos to google for celebrating! Who is Frida Kahlo? Only one of the kookiest (that's right, I said kookiest!) painters of the 20th century. For real. She had a uni-brow and was quite proud of it! Seriously, check it out! Way to go Frida! I am definitely not sure enough of my self to basically tell the world, "Hey! I have a lot of hair on my face and I don't care if you know it!" This little beauty to the left is called "Self-Portrait with Monkey" (go figure) and was done in 1938. Kahlo is described as a surrealist painter and once said, "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best." Honestly, I think she's crazy. But I have to say that she's also pretty awesome. New goal for myself. I want to be the subject that I know best. How well do we really know ourselves? I feel like I make new discoveries constantly. So I'm going to strive to know myself, my strengths as well as my weaknesses and become really comfortable with who I am so if I had to I could say, "Hey! I have a lot of hair on my face and I don't care if you know it!"
So I'm a little late in posting. I actually finished this book a few weeks ago but due to other awesome things keeping me busy, I haven't found the time to post until now. The book: Slaughterhouse Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death The author: Kurt Vonnegut Trust me, not nearly as gruesome as it sounds. When I had this book with me during my break at work I got some kind of crazy looks and comments to which I had to reply, "It's not gross and it's not about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Then they would pretty much either roll their eyes or give a sigh of relief. This is actually an anti-war book. Go figure! But I was hoping you might have figured that from the "Children's Crusade" part of the title. The most basic gist of the plot that I can give is this: One man retells the bombing of Dresden, Germany through one of his fellow POW's perspective. Both men experience severe PTSD and have difficulty moving forward with their lives without looking back as well. I thought this book was totally fiction but after a little research discovered that there was a Dresden, Germany that was bombed at the end of WWII in 1945. Some reports say that it killed as many if not more than the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. That author claims that some parts of the personal stories are true as well, so I'm going to side with him and say that they are too. I was a little skeptical reading an "anti-war" book. I just knew it was either going to be laced with a political agenda or be full of hippies dancing around doing LSD and saying "War is sad, man!" But really in its simplest form this book is just saying that war hurts. No obvious political activism or discreet hippies. There was one part of the book that I found particularly interesting. The main character, Billy, says that he was abducted by aliens and they showed him that humans see life all wrong. Humans see life as a time line, continuing on chronologically until death and then it's over. But the aliens see that living goes on forever because moments don't just happen and then disappear. They are always happening and never end, and there is no chronological pattern to events. I had to wonder what this idea had to do with the book and I honestly had no clue...until I looked it up. Yes, I'm such a cheater. Oh well. Vonnegut was big on fatalism, apparently he had some sort of connection to it in each of his books. Fatalism is essentially the idea that fate and pre-determination exist and are indeed inescapable. This being known it makes the alien knowledge of time a little easier to understand. According to Vonnegut, events will always happen no matter what, the bombing of Dresden happened and would have happened even if it was seen into the future and people wanted to stop it, it would have occurred anyway. This is loosely just my interpretation (and I'm crossing my fingers that it's right!). From all of this I'm going to say that from my not so professional opinion this book is simply saying war is bad and horrifying and awful...and unavoidable. So long as there are humans, there will be war. "So it is" as Vonnegut repeated in the book. But just because it is doesn't mean it's good. So there, that is what it is. If you're going to read this book here's a disclaimer: It's not gruesome and gory but there is quite a bit of language and...references. But if you are one who can see past that then this is probably an A- book on my list. Not my favorite but still quite enjoyable.
