... miscellanery...

There's a graying old man in a white jogging suit passing by outside...
Ambers, yellow greens and beiges bounce across from adjacent buildings...
The wind is lifting the weary limbs of slumbering pines...
And I'm listening to "Consent" by the Devlins... Thanks, Sabi. :)

Oops!

Oh yes... I forgot. My father took us to see "The Nutcracker," which is, according to my sister, an honored tradition for the Houston Ballet.

If any of you know me, (which I will assume w/o hesitation) none yet do, er... unless God is reading this, you'll understand that I would fain forego a football game or other sporting event to see something of this kind.

What can I say? For one brief cosmic moment, I got to sink into that welcoming bosom of dreams "amidst great midnight chandeliers" that I've only marginally scraped during my academia at BYU. Not to be cheesy, though I'm patently patterned that way, but it felt like home.

I dare not speak here of production values, knowing that I am still an all-around dilettante in comparison to the more culturally acclimated, except to say that it was extraordinary to behold through a veil of a winter's landscape a child waking from a Nutcracker dream, to see sugar-plum fairies pirouetting amidst giant falling snowflakes, and perhaps most profound, to witness the grandeur of a family gathering like it should be, but perhaps never has been---all enacted in effulgent, eloquent dance.

As I sat there, I was reminded that God, too, is an inspirer of poetry, of music, of things that drive mankind's dreams... and I once again felt close to my Creator, esteeming myself a creator also, albeit on a miniscule scale. It made my vacation, even from the cheap seats.

Well, my oratory has once again spilled over into the ostentatious... So, adieu.

Ornamental thoughts, as in adj : serving an esthetic rather than a useful purpose

---For much of the past few days I was more or less folded up in the back-cab? of my sister's pick-up truck: you know, that one-foot-square crevice that allows for the ample cramming of shabby T-shirts, old purses, notebooks, and shopping paraphernalia... and brothers, though in a manner not suiting said objects' safe transport. Once or twice I bumped my head as we hit one or two of Houston's more notorious potholes in a row, which while providing for some wicked loft likewise produced traumatizing turbulence.

---Driving in my sister's truck is no less harrowing, considering the aforementioned scabrous surface of Houston's highways and byways, and the bobbing suspension on her Nissan Kingcab XE; I felt like I was riding a speed boat across a varied wave-pattern, striking some throttling crest as I hit a poorly-paved pothole and then lilting and lulling on the descending side of the swell afterward. Today I drove myself to church in trepidation, to say the least.

---I notice that I also make with the strange Jerry Lewisness while I'm alone in the car. (Silly nonsense noise-making, high-pitched singing---Re: the funniest scene in Bruce Almighty.) Perhaps it's the general tedium of driving; maybe I'm just never as alone as when I'm barreling down an expressway in a confining metal compartment on wheels connected to a series of controlled explosions... LOL. Prozac, anyone?

---I bid my Grandma good-bye this morning... She was sad to have to journey home alone; I was sorrowful to see her go. Now that airports have become so technologically oriented she's bewildered as to how to accomplish certain tasks relegated (in the name of efficiency) to the Internet and computer terminals...

---Anyway, my Dad and I have begun (unofficially) a tradition of watching westerns---usually w/ Clint Eastwood---around the holidays. My father's family spent some time working on a ranch or the like in Colorado, and he seems to recall some of those gentler years watching Clint Eastwood pop a proverbial cap in Gene Hackman's gullet (or face?). Er, ... ahem! I'm sure it has something to do with the wild country... oh, and horses.

---Oh, and I got some 3 or so Nutcrackers amongst my holiday plunder... just FYI, Liz. :)

Thank you, Mr. Telford

The photography instructor for my Visual Arts core photography class, and apparently current chair of the Visual Arts department, John Telford, told us "you can't take pictures w/o a camera." I assure you, the thunderingly redundant tone of his words is misleading. Today, I stood only a few feet from the uniquely beautiful Houston temple, splashed by sunset, both because of its luna pearl granite exterior and the now rosy golden rays streaming through lingering cumulonimbus and nimbostratus clouds whizzing round me and the temple environs---and I had NO camera. I could only pray that w/ my meager mind's eye I could take a snapshot to be seen on Judgment Day, a flicker of serenity amidst less lofty remembrances.

On a sunnier note, a comb-over man clad in a Santa Claus tie and brown? blazer approached me thinking that I was a non-member from the adjacent neighborhood (which ludicrous presumption would have been rudely dispelled by the disparity between my beggar-yuppie attire and the hulking mansions overlooking the near-by golf course) struck by curiosity regarding the lovely edifice and its purposes. He intended to be of some help, no doubt in an evangelical capacity. I, not prone to pulling someone's leg so near and so touched by the sobering surroundings, told him I was a member, and that in fact some of my brood had gone inside the distribution center to obtain some necessary somethings.

A little embarrassed, he graciously bowed out and away and I returned to my ruminating, proud to have been of some hope to a servant of God hungering and thirsting after additional proselyting opportunities.

And that, fair friends, was the bulk of my day, aside from a number of errands of small distinction on the daily, let alone life-time, level.

Ta-ta!

Catawampus

I'm not very adaptive, methinks. An adventurous person would have at least ventured beyond the back porch/balcony thingy and gone for a walk... I'm still figuring out how to sit down and draw in what feels very much like an alternate universe. Which reminds me: I miss my ghetto drafting table.

The muddy mood of the "mission field."

Sunday observations:
#1---It's odd that most anywhere outside of Utah is unofficially (which term---in its common sacrament meeting application---means that even high council speakers employ it liberally) dubbed "the mission field."
#2---I've discovered that I'm just as incompetent a servant of God as I was some 10 or so years ago. I know this for a number or reasons, but in particular because I vehemently defied my father's revulsion at my having worn a shirt a second day in a row (what, am I going to be accepting the Pulitzer after leftovers?).
#3---Personal soap-boxes are detrimental to gospel doctrine.
#4---Graying/silver hair is attractive only to sweet Grandmothers and their beauty salon buddies.
#5---Women are still unnervingly alluring. (There's something WRONG with me!)
#6---Due to numbers 2 and 5, I'm still vaguely pondering shock treatment.

Eh...

So I'm afraid to complain anymore... It's really the only substantial element of my blogging, and where most of my quasi-comedic musings come from, anyway.

For instance, I find it odd that our technologically-governed society can press people into a claustrophobic metal missile w/ wings, send it aloft in the sky, rudely leave them huddled w/ the remnants of a ham and hot mustard sandwich on their lap, and then jostle their seat upright because of something called "initial descent."

Gratefully, I had the window seat, and could ruminate as to whether I was looking at mountain ranges, or bleeding earth, lakes or oil spills, and just generally peer into clouds and know visual clarity for a rare moment; in effect, I could ignore some of the inevitable unpleasantries of the plane ride.

I don't deny that even the foulest experiences are beautiful. I should remind myself of those poor individuals in "deprived" countries that may never know the experience of flying in a plane, but oh wait... I doubt it matters to them, given the prevailing lack of less luxurious accoutrements.

At times I'm just wondering why we don't find these things ludicrous. Doesn't the world seem more and more like THX 1138, or myriad other sci-fi flicks, wherein people---on a personal level---become less and less significant? Just think about the typical airport experience: one is essentially driven forward, down, left, around the elevators, down this corridor, onto this escalator, like ... well, a cow. I can't remember if I mentioned already the eerie nature of "people processors," but I think I just reiterated the ugly reasons why people will hate going to the DMV, the post office, etc. Somehow one's humanity is sublimated in so vast a machine. (Oooh, Metropolis reference!)

On a related tack... previous to now, I've flown on Southwest airlines, offering perhaps the most "ghetto" air travel experience (and yet, not surprisingly, the most HUMAN---the stewardesses/stewards have more fun w/ the pre-flight rigamarole) and had not yet witnessed the televised pre-flight message, wherein screens lower from above the seats and a cool, pretty, plastic version of a stewardess then flawlessly advises passengers about the floatation device and the emergency exits. She ceases being "human," in my feeling. It's comparable to the same disconnective powers of television and the internet, driving a wedge between flesh-and-blood human beings. It's also too "perfect," despite obvious bugs in the monitor. Give me a painted hussy, an old hag, a high-school drop-out with pink highlights, but not a perfectly-modeled icon.

Of course, I have no real intellectual authority on which to back up my theories, which is why, perhaps, my BLOG is the best and only location in which they can be registered. And here also, the most suitable receptor of my nonsense, the oblivion of cyberspace, will receive it in its glory.

I don't argue that ecumenically I'm not most likely a hypocrite, a fool, etc. for feeling this way, especially since my patent lethargy keeps me from acting on my theories, or at the very least researching and publishing them, but I can't help but make the observations anyway. My sincerest apologies for offending the academic and/or action-oriented ear at making them known here.

Until later, kiddies.

Re: THE LIZ FACTOR or "The Juice"

One of my numerous theories, perhaps to be someday published in a Dave Barry-type book, is that we each have varied levels of a substance called "The Juice," human pherimones, if you will.

I say this because I've noticed a patent lack in the quantity/quality of mine, and a whopping Exxon Valdez-sized load just oooooooooooooooozing from others. Allow me to cite a noteworthy example from the now infamous ex-fiancee's apartment (Courtside)

INT. APARTMENT. NIGHT... A studly, dark-eyed fellow named Colby (the name just burns w/ male soap-opera hubba-hubba) on a fateful evening stopped by to say "Hello." Since things were ever up-and-down w/ this would-have-been-lover, I was not yet sure as to what kind of feelings she had for me. I was either trying to play it cool or thinking that, romantically "All was Well in Zion." At any rate, Mr. Beefcake didn't even cross the threshold, and all eyes were fixed on his masculine frame. Not one female eye in the room dared dart away for a second, lest they miss perhaps some mischievous flicker of a grin, an involuntary flex of a bicep, or other assorted evidences of a Tom Cruise swagger.

I remained, of course, perplexed by the power this newfound personal idol had on these college gals: typically aloof, studious, serious, etc. but now beyond hope of self-mastery. My own love-interest lingered at the door, drinking-lounge-style draped over the door like how a butcher hangs meat in the window. She was clearly advertising.

At this point, I could feel the disparity between my male "umph" and this hunk's estimable potency. As he bid them good-bye, all four girls' eyes pierced sheet rock, wood and paint and followed this virile figure with a hormonal radar as he passed through the outer door and down the few stairs leading in front of their window. Naturally, I had to clear the way so each of them could pry open the blinds and giggle at his "wiggle" as he walked away.

I was amazed. I felt like the pup in the old---was it MGM?---cartoon where the biggger dog is circled by an excitable pup, eager to be apprentice to an apparent master of "doghood." Clearly I needed schooling... or scrubbing? He was well-groomed.

Alas, such as it was, I entered it into my lengthy list of humorous anecdotes and there it remains... proof positive that some guys got it, some guys don't.

Super 8 mm film splicing: torture for perfectionists

I cannot adequately address the torment I suffered for some 9 hours editing my final project for my Super 8 class; what's more, I cannot speak of the final moments, splicing the film pieces together, w/o employing expletives, such as I did bountifully as I attempted to place pieces of tape small enough to merit tweezers (which I was not wise enough to use) onto an equally miniscule reel of film w/o obscuring the apertures in the film itself. This requires matching the holes in the specially-designed tape to those in the film. Madness ensued. I'm only all to gratified to suppose that only the creaking wood frame of the Villa and its assorted vermin residents heard my cackling, my curses, and my raising an angry fist or two to the gods of motion pictures.

Still, that much is over, and even though I've yet to complete a vital project (another kind of fastidious torment) for another film class, I feel my anxiety subsiding, and hope rising as the prospect of parting w/ Happy Valley, if only for a brief sabbatical, looms closer.

Praised be the holiday that encourages just a little sloth...

THE LIZ FACTOR or The Origins of Redguy

That's right. My apartment was bombarded by a feminine force of nature; apparently men can't help but flock in Liz's direction. She has but to smile, utter some of that trademark witty banter and toss around those long blonde locks and my roomie Stuart does his best schtick; Chris actually emerges from the Chris Cave to sneak a peek(yes, he's a super-hero; we're still working on the name and where to put the big red button); and I stutter like a broken-record machine on rocket fuel. What could overpower the considerable self-control of three studious college students? I give you: THE LIZ FACTOR. (Okay, so I exaggerate, but the attention was impressive. Way to represent, roomies!)

For Sabi: Redguy is well, a red guy. He's a Korvaxian from the Treiz galaxy. LOL. Okay, so he's a space alien-type character I made up, but some of the details are still pending. Lest some plagarist punk rob me of my glory I'll only say that I want to do some computer animation movie w/ his story... Hey, I can dream, dangit!!!

Post-Tanksgibbing

It was a blissful holiday, and no offense to my fellow denizens of Happy Valley, but I didn't want to come back...
Furthermore, excepting the future enjoyment of video games (the Fates willing), what past-times I once enjoyed seem empty or pointless...
Truth be told, I guess I'm sick of the way I usually am, especially on this BLOG, and until I feel I can say something original/exceptionally witty I doubt I'll be posting much.
Y'see, I don't have epiphanic moments unless I'm wowed by an unusually dispiriting dilemma. I become sullen, sardonic, and so forth: an energy-sucker. Allow me to explain the energy-sucker concept as one highly-animated (and tall) religion instructor (and business professor) at BYU implied it. There are two kinds of people in this world: energy suckers and energy suppliers. I, as I understood his insinuation, have ever been the former, and well, I was tired of it then... now I'm near-postal down-spiraling.
So, until I feel like I do more than whimper and radiate my self-absorbed sulking, I'll avoid posting.
On more than one occasion I'll come to my Blogger dashboard, bring up the create a post window and then leave because I don't have anything to say...
That being said I'll skedaddle.

GIVING THANKS . . .

I'm thankful for noses . . .
for cherubic children who seem content with next to nothing . . .
for the slightly cold feeling that makes being tucked away inside a blanket enchilada that much more inviting . . .
for my angel mother, whose tenderness was such that she taught kindness many times w/o trying . . .
for my patient father, who, despite having difficulty understanding my penchant for procrastination plods on prodding me nonetheless . . .
for my grandma, who has a seemingly perpetual haven of silence awaiting me in Idaho . . .
for my brother, for being the good-looking, go-getting half of our twin-ship . . .
for my sis, Ebie, whose heart is so big, so soft, so golden it can't help but get marred sometimes . . .
for the reality of modern-day revelation, prophets and apostles . . .
for our Savior and associated entities, whose graciousness and grandeur I dare not mock w/ my "much speaking" . . .
and last, but not least, for the very, very few that I conjecture to call friends, even though you're all so much cooler!

So I'm mouldy/moldy/stinky cheese . . .

Let the BLOG match the rotted, stinking shell of a soul inside of me. I say, let the fungus fly!

What you apparently creative wonders don't understand is that more often than not I'm beset by feelings I either don't care to divulge in the stark nudity of cyberspace, or that almost make breathing, let alone producing any writing worthy of wonderment excruciating.

And if I can't amaze at the very least myself (w/ the low standards for which I'm famous, at least to my professors) then I don't care to "embark."

Was it Goethe? No, couldn't be . . . Eh . . . Well, anyway I THINK it was Goethe that said, "Anything you can do or dream you can . . . begin it."

I'm done with the loftiest dreaming for now, and perhaps for a while. I'll settle for the whimsy of the worlds I've got made up in my head.

So if I don't write, my sincerest apologies to those for whom it matters sufficient to call my BLOG "mouldy."

Adieu.

My not-so-humble apology . . . (since I'm not very humble)

However, I hope this to be understood as heartfelt. I thought about just adding a comment onto my previous post, but I wanted to publicly apologize for either inadequately expressing my true sentiments or stating them too harshly in my comments. I'm terribly sorry, Samantha. You're hands down one of my favorite people next to my mother. :) I'm loathe to think that I hurt you at all.

The bliss of Tony Bennett

I know most everyone loves punk, alternative, or pop, but criminy . . . THIS IS MUSIC, the kind that lets you exhale, takes you on a rolling dolly shot past scenic cityscapes, tea-drinkers at cute little urban cafes, and dancing at midnight. Punk can't do that. Couldn't dream of it. So there.

EDIT: For aficionados of punk/alternative, etc. offended by the above please read my comment in reply to Sam, thank you.

Just a few lyrical morsels:

Because of You

Because of you there's a song in my heart
Because of you my romance had its start
Because of you the sun will shine
The moon and stars will say you're mine
Forever and never to part

I only live for your love and your kiss
It's paradise to be near you like this
Because of you my life is now worthwhile
And I can smile
Because of you

I only live for your love and your kiss
It's paradise to be near you like this
Because of you my life is now worthwhile
And I can smile
Because of you

-------------------------------------------

This is All I Ask

As I approach the prime of my life
I find I have the time of my life
Learning to enjoy at my leisure
All the simple pleasures
And so I happily concede
That this is all I ask
This is all I need

Beautiful girls, walk a little slower when you walk by me
Lingering sunsets, stay a little longer with the lonely sea
Children everywhere, when you shoot at bad men, shoot at me
Take me to that strange, enchanted land grown-ups seldom understand

Wandering rainbows, leave a bit of color for my heart to own
Stars in the sky, make my wish come true before the night has flown
And let the music play as long as there's a song to sing
And I will stay younger than Spring

Moldy? It is to laugh . . .

I scoff. I only do not write because I have little to say. My days lately have consisted of me suffering prostrate on the couch or slumping in my chair attempting to elude the dull ache in my back, the searing pain in my skull, or the lingering sense of guilt for my numerous frailties.

I'm also experiencing a lull in creative aspiration, if only because so much of my pinings seem pointless. So, rather than diminish, I disappear. :)

Anyway, this is the most I can come up with currently. I must begin to grind, grind, grind, at that grindstone . . . (for time it slips, like sand through a sieve; and all at once they're up and grown and then they've flown and it's too late for you to give.)

THE INCREDIBLES!!!!

Woooo-hoooooooooooooooooo! Could there be a film more made for moi? Computer animation, super heroes, and nuclear family values?? Hahahahahahah! I LOVE THIS MOVIE! In fact, I'm going to see it AGAIN tomorrow, bright and early (eh--11:00 a.m., that is). That's it. No flashy alliteration. No blah blah blah, puke puke puke Taylorisms. It's just hands down the kind of movie I go to the movies for . . . it's energizing, even exhilarating, so enjoy. (Crap! Alliteration! Gah!)

Anyway, I highly recommend it.

Some recent poetry . . .

As per the request of a pair of friends, I wrote some poetry:

Impassioned by the roguish brands of harvest clime
Enraptured, poked, and slit by feral nature,
Tossed and turned ‘midst color nomenclature,
I, maddened, lost, can scarce concoct this rhyme.

As haughty crimson, orange, brown and gold
In wanton fury storm amongst the fray,
And marching down their own along the way,
A global war is waged, a world waxed cold.

Yet death in chilling rest affords short peace,
A tender wrap for nature’s angry
woes,
Such tranquil bliss that through thy image sews,
A questing soul’s row pacified in fleece.

‘Tis but stark mercy to the cosmic lot,
That after grief thy wintry sleep be wrought.
........................................................
A wanton air that once flowed soft in sheltered
Skies beyond,
Strolled across the meadow still that secrets
Did abscond
And blissful still the potent scent that sweltered
In the breeze,
Flowered in the mountains, over rivers,
Through the trees.

What rumors of the ages swooned amidst
The mossy rows
Of grasses slumping stalwart in the dreamer’s
Under-tow?
What magic tales resounded as the moon-light
Lit its eye,
Within the hoary ether twixt the pavement
And the sky?

So still, so faint, so fragile was the murmur
In the wind,
That scarcely could I mark it ‘fore the zephyr
Did rescind,
Yet on the cusp of breathing, the whisper
of the night,
Came issuing like honey in thine eyes
And of thy sight.

Drifting like a specter, upon some
gentle flow
The myst’ries of the heavens in thyself did
Themselves show
Though restless are my patterns and selfish
Are my ways
In thee, oh night-time maiden my feral
Self allays.

Meeeeeeeh! Bleh, . . . ptooey! :)

So I'm at the point now where I'm shoving tissue paper pellets up my nose to stop the irritating flow and to reduce the chafing of the delicate nasal formation. I wonder if that's what really happened to Michael Jackson. He just got the worst cold in the world and ran out of Puffs Lotion--- Ooooh, and he had to use paper towels instead. So now he's got nothing left but a nub and two nostril passages flattened next to his face. It also explains why he's as pale as he is . . .

Anyway, I didn't go to class yesterday and did really nothing else. I'm at Defcon 5, energy-level speaking, so I can only scratch my head and do the comfort wiggle as I bury my face in a pillow. Usually I just go up to campus and blow people flu-saturated kisses--- (Devilish grin) ---although I'm not certain what it is I've got. My roomie Jared suggested that he'd been sick before. He must have taken the tail of the beast and I've received the jaws and abdomen---I'm being eaten alive!!!

I'll stop complaining and wish all of you healthy souls a hopeful reprieve from flu season sickness. Adieu.

Dumb Internet

I lost a brilliant post to the oblivion of cyberspace . . . AGAIN!!!! (Cue slurs, slander, and depraved vulgarities here.)

Since it's impossible to conjure said masterpiece, I'm limited to what miserly and miserable cocktail I can concoct from my newfound frustration and the yummy chicken-noodle soup (spruced up w/ some garlic seasoning) swirling in my contented stomach.

I DID say some marvelous things about the pointlessness of our political system, especially w/ regards to electoral results, but I cannot bear to revisit them; "my grief is still too near." I'm also fighting off a current of mucous threatening to exit my nasal passage in unseemly slow-motion.

My only good news is that I have used an entire section of dryers to get my laundry done, plus two. That makes 11 dryers. That's right. I'm doing laundry for a small island nation.