Workshopping with Ava Leavell Haymon

Above: Workshop participants and staff with Ava Leavell Haymon (2nd from Left).

Had a really nice evening with Ava Leavell Haymon’s poetry workshop. It was a small crowd so we got to do quite a few exercises, and have lots of nice little conversations on the process, what inspires us, and we also got to read some of our own works.

She’s also reading this Tuesday night at Charis books (7pm), I’d highly recommend anyone catch her reading that can. She’s currently doing readings from her new book “Kitchen Heat”.

Unconcious/Inconscientes

I was first attracted to this movie for its setting, in one of my favorite cities - Barcelona. Probably one of the most unique cities in the world, and on the top of my list if I ever decided to go expatriate.

On that account it certainly doesnt disappoint, especially since it's a 1913 period piece, when Barcelona was in the midst of a cultural, architectural, philosophical golden age.

The costumes and sets are just incredible, if you're a big fan of Art Nouveau and Modernisme, you have to see this movie just for the apartments and fabulous dresses and hats.

That said, it's also a cute little entertaining movie - what some people would call a modern "romp". The main characters, two sisters and two brothers who are both psychiatrists, are each married to the wrong person (for reasons that unfold throughout the movie). The movie losely revolves around a trip by Sigmund Freud to the city and a plot to asssassinate him. Along the way theres, bordelos, Maury Povich "who's the daddy" drama, lots of talk about large penises, incest, secret transvestite clubs, victorian porn studios, royal intrique, etc., etc. the twists just keep coming eventually it all gets to be a bit much.

I have to give it credit though for being sort of a "modern" period piece, and one of the main themes is how society deals with self expression, identity, and uniqueness. Some people are liberated, and others, well...

What do you do when self-examinating and discovery, let maybe one too many genies out of the bottle - that can't be put back in?

Vernon Robinson Ad

I saw this on Andrew Sullivan's blog and thought I'd post it as well.

It's absolutely hilarious. Probably one of the most condescening, pandering, fear-mongering ads I've ever seen.

When People Die and No One Notices

This story kept sticking with me. So I thought I’d comment. Recently, a man was found mummified in front of a blaring TV set. They estimate he’d been dead for about a year. His neighbors didn’t really notice, thinking he’d been shipped off to a home. Apparently, no family checked in, or there was no family. There were no friends or anyone else to check in either.

How does this happen? There’s lots of issues here, like how we dismiss the elderly and tend to warehouse them and how we can be so isolated in a modern society that is all about communication and interaction.

But what I keep coming back to is probably a universal fear we all share. What if we die and no one notices? This is a case of it happening quite literally, but doesn’t it happen every day? I guess we all like to think we make a difference, have caring friends and family. However, under the right string of circumstances this could probably happen to any of us.

I guess I’m particular sensitive to this issue, since I have a personal experience along these lines. Years ago, when I lived in Woodland Hills, a nice intown little neighborhood, I had an elderly next door neighbor. She was nice enough, not the friendliest person, but a retired professional, educated, having a nice little home. I remember she smoked a lot of pot, mostly with her maintenance man who seemed to be his main visitor.

We had pretty typical small ranch houses, close together, and the windows on the side were high on the walls, so you could see into the next house if the curtains were open, but only the top part of the room. I’d often put my tie on in the living room on the way out the door by a big mirror there. The way the mirror sat I also got a view of my neighbors back room. I noticed one day there was a note stuck to the wall. Just like a piece of notebook or legal paper taped right to the wall. I remember at the time wondering that it was, and deciding it was probably a note to her handy man, Something like instructions on painting the wall or something.

A week passed, then another, in the third week I came home after work one day to find all this activity in my neighbors yard. There was an ambulance, the police, other cars. Turns out my neighbor had quietly killed herself, and the note I was seeing everyday as I put on my tie, was not some instructions for the handyman, but actually her suicide note. A note that hung on the wall, right over the couch on which she lay dead. A body that just because of the way the windows were laid out, I just barely couldn’t see.

So how does this happen?

How does someone pass away in front of their TV set and not be discovered until a year later?

David Lynch - THE GRANDMOTHER

The David Lynch Experience

I recently saw David Lynch's newest Movie "Inland Empire" a 3 hour tour de force, of talking rabbits, time warps, stories-within-stories, emotional instability, and lots of tight gritty close-ups. A lots been said on that movie, and I actually wanted to talk more about the experience of David Lynch movies rather than any particular movie itself.

For me it started at Wake Forest, I was pretty much just off the turnip truck from rural Eastern North Carolina. However, I was all set for something new and different, challenging. The little student theater there, run by the film department was a small basement affair in the student center. A small cinder block room, painted black with maybe 20-30 chairs, and a projector on a AV stand in the back. There was probably never more than 10-15 people there for any movie that I can remember.

It's an experience I'm not sure people get today (what with Netflix, downloads and DVDs). There's something exciting about going down long hallways and stairs to some small basement black box to see some arthouse movie - there's that feeling of discovery, of being introduced to something unusual, something "arty". There's this joining of a small club of film buffs who "get it" when most people don't even try.

Well David Lynch was part of all that. I remember seeing Eraserhead and his earlier movies here, being riveted to the screen by the sheer perverseness and creativity of it all.

He later went a bit more mainstream with Blue Velvet, and Dune. Then veered off the tracks a bit to a more personal style with Mulholland Drive and now especially Inland Empire.

I read a recent article asking -- "Just how do you keep your reputation as a renegade avant garde film maker when you hit 50?"

I also remember seeing Andy Warhol movies there (see previous post on Factory Girl) actually sitting through all five hours of "Sleep" (which you can't even find today) - Who in the MTV generation would do that today?

How do people today discover art cinema? That there's something outside of the the local mall octoplex?

DVDs are a mixed blessing, I know they're cited as the main culprit in the death of the Art Cinema. Atlanta used to have quite a few. Places like Rhodes Hall, that showed old B&W classics, and hard to find foreign movies. It's nice that it's all (mostly) available for home consumption, but I guess I miss the magic of seeing those classics on the big screen with an audience.

Or in the case of David Lynch, seeing a a movie in a student center basement.

I've attached what I think is probably the ultimate early Lynch movie "The Grandmother" not as famous as Eraserhead, but probably more disturbing and memorable.

Coconut Creme Hazelnut Coffee - Am I Really a Coffee Drinker?

I like to think of myself as a bit of a purist.

However, I think most died-in-the-wool coffee lovers would cringe if they saw me drinking my morning cup of java.

For years (The Miami days) I was partial to cuban coffees and straight up expressos. Though cafe con leche was my coffee drink of choice.

So, it's with mixed emotions I introduce what is one of my favorite products lately. Coffee-Mate Coconut Creme creamer - yummm. Then to add insult to injury, I add this to my Hazelnut flavored coffee.

So the question is - am I really a coffee drinker, or am I just jonesing for a caffeine buzz and candy coating in exotic tropical flavors just to get it down?

I came late in life to coffee, not really drinking it until my late 30s, though my parents were heavy coffee drinkers. I can still picture my mom at the dining room table with her lipstick stained cigarettes and coffee mugs. My caffeine fix of choice was always (and still is) diet Coke.

There's just something about the ceremony, the procedure of getting the water, filter, measuring out the coffee, the machine dripping away, the aromas - nothing seems to say "okay I'm awake" more than that second cup.

So apparently this is a "limited edition" creamer (gee, don't I feel special just having it in my fridge). So try it while you can.

Factory Girl

I’ll have to admit a certain fascination with all things Warhol. Especially the whole mystique of the Factory. I’ve always thought of it as the Left Bank of the 60s. Sort of a perfect storm of inspiration, creativity and chaos. It apparently, had a bit of everything 70s -- Lots of drugs, tons of sex, and rock ‘n roll ala the Velvet Underground. It is also famous for taking people and chewing them up and spitting them out, while a detached remote Andy reigned benignly over it all.

There’s some fascinating characters that came out of there. There was hunky bad boy drug addict Joe D'Alessandro. Viking songstress Nico and then also Lou Reed with the Velvet Underground. Then just a whole slew of various wannabees, drug addicts and hanger ons.

But probably the most famous of the Factory celebrities was Edie Sedgewick. Who supposedly gave us the term so often used now “superstar”. She was a bit of a poor little rich girl, from a totally nonfunctional family. An old money socialite who depending on who you walk to was either a beautiful flawed total nutcase carrying on the family tradition of nervous breakdowns and self destruction or she was a fragile beauty that Andy Warhol used up and discarded like yesterday’s empty tomato soup can.

Sienna Miller is in the title role, and manages to show Edie’s early brashness and charm that pulled so many people in, then the just utter lost soul who is strung out in the Chelsea while her friends shoot her up, make porno movies, and steal her silver and furs.

Guy Pierce is almost unrecognizable as the pasty, blotchy faced and emotionally distant Warhol. Warhol does not fair well in the movie. He comes across as vapid, and petty. He seems to be fascinated with Edie, but at the same time, two faced and an unreliable friend.

A Bob Dylan-esque character is central. Apparently in real life Edie was seeing him for sometime. He seems to be her savior for a while, but then abandons her to the factory and the drugs, going off to get secretly married. Bob Dylan apparently tried to block the release of the movie. Though I don’t think he comes across as the big bad guy, he just walked away from a bad situation, when he was probably Edie’s last hope.

Also, I have to mention one of my favorite actresses, Illeana Douglas, who plays Vogue Editor, Diana Vreeland.

All in all, I know this is one interpretation of the whole Warhol Factory scene and the tragedies that surrounded it. Warhol definitely loses a bit of his luster in this movie. However, you feel sorry for him in a way, being such a tragic lonely figure, that can’t reach out or make any real connections.

In the end, I think this says a lot about current pop culture. That whole 70s Studio 54/Factory scene may even have started a lot of it. Everyone’s fascination with their 15 minutes of fame, and superstar status continuing even today with Britney and Paris.

And where Andy Warhol elevated common cultural items like soup cans and advertising images to art status. It seems he did just the opposite with Edie, taking a real beauty and helping transform her into a bruised common heroin addict in a seedy hotel.