Three Random Pieces

Eleven pages after the previous post's journal entry I found this scribbled in red:

The casualties keep coming; on gurneys, in the arms of a woman, from the back of an old Studebaker. I'm the only healer for miles and miles and no matter how many I repair and bandage and suture, for every one twelve more arrive with pleading eyes. It's chaos and mayhem and I cannot escape. ~28 Feb 2009

Five more pages from that, also in red:

Beside the campground, off in a dune, half buried sits an old player piano. I sit at the edge of my blue tent and listen. I hear the crackle of the campfire, the katie-dids in the distance and Byron's banjo. He plays off key and pulls stupid faces which draws laughter from his audience. They're trippin' on mushrooms and dancing and singing "Uncle John's Band". They feel like all the world is in love and at peace.
I pull a long, slow drag from my orange cigarette and continue to stare at the keys. I am at ease and feel totally content as I try not to try to hold onto this feeling. I try to accept it as here and now and as a part of this now and as time forces this moment into the past, I cherish that it passed by me. That's all I can ever hope for; to have been a part of something real and magical. ~4 March 2009

And sixteen pages after that, this time in blue:

He told me that my eyes were the colour of broken dreams. I liked that he said that because it was comforting and real and familiar. Then I remembered 6 weeks later that it was familiar because it was a line from a book from the 70s. I no longer liked it, suddenly I felt cheated. Like he wasn't saying it to make me feel that he saw a part of me that no one else noticed. It became an itch on Jeff's casted leg and made me see him differently. He morphed into an audience and I the clown. ~Spring 2009

Journal Entry - 2.02.2009

My Picks

It's Oscar night! If I had my way, these would be my selections for the Academy Awards:

-Best Picture-

(photo kidnapped from IMDb)
Midnight in Paris
The Way
La piel que habito
The Help
The Descendants

-Best Director-

(photo kidnapped from ecartelera)

Pedro Almodóvar La piel que habito
Woody Allen Midnight in Paris
Emilio Estevez The Way
Werner Herzog Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Michel Hazanavicius The Artist

-Best Actor-

(photo kidnapped from Agustín Rivera)
Antonio Banderas La piel que habito
Martin Sheen The Way
Joseph Gordon-Levitt 50/50
Michael Shannon Take Shelter
George Clooney The Descendants

-Best Actress-

(photo kidnapped from The Monsieur)

Emily Blunt The Adjustment Bureau
Meryl Streep Iron Lady
Viola Davis The Help
Glenn Close Albert Nobbs
Michelle Williams My Week with Marilyn

-Supporting Actor-

(photo kidnapped from poptower)
Chris Cooper The Company Men
Michael Sheen Midnight in Paris
Corey Stoll Midnight in Paris
Bryan Cranston Drive
Brad Pitt Tree of Life

-Supporting Actress-

(photo kidnapped from Covering Media)
Charlotte Rampling The Mill and the Cross
Angelica Houston 50/50
Kathy Bates Midnight in Paris
Jessica Chastain Tree of Life
Marisa Paredes La piel que habito

Anyone who saw Midnight in Paris was swept away. It was a wonderful and whimsical film that allowed the viewers to catch a glimpse of another place, another time period in such a way that you truly felt fantastic leaving the theatre. Another triumph, Mr. Allen!

La piel que habito is Pedro Almodóvar's finest achievement. Beautiful and disturbing and utterly mesmerising. His exquisite direction brought out a performance from Antonio Banderas that blew my freakin' mind.

The scene in the ladies' room when Matt Damon bursts in on Emily Blunt and her reaction is why she is the Best Actress. The Adjustment Bureau was inventive and romantic and Ms. Blunt was so natural and graceful as Elise that it has stayed with me ever since.

For me, The Company Men fell a good distance from my expectations. Chris Cooper, however, far exceeded my expectations. He was nothing short of stupendous.

Charlotte Rampling in The Mill and the Cross, I imagine, was given the following direction from Lech Majewski "One word for your character - devastation." And she fuckin' ran with it. Every single moment she spent on screen rips your gut out and makes your eyes burn with tears.

Thinkin' about...

...and how I long to go back to the most beautiful city I've ever known.

What I Miss

The brown rectangular box radio that sat atop our old Harvest Gold fridge throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. In the 70s and early 80s it was always on, but as my mother's world went from smooth and still to busy and full of noise, the radio would remain off. I noticed later that the lack of music in our home on a daily basis, which saddened me, was my mother's way to establish a serene atmosphere. We were loud enough - why add to that? In the 1990s when I was finally old enough to be left home alone, I would spring onto my tippie toes and reach up to turn the dial way up and bop my head to the newest latest tunes. Even now, whenever I am alone in their house and in the kitchen about to bake cookies, I find that while looking at the recipe book, I walk backwards with my hand reaching up to turn on the radio that is no longer there.

The cornfield behind Rachel's neighbourhood that is now a large suburban development with bland, average homes, plus a retirement community, and an upscale shopping plaza. Over the course of the thirty years we have lived in Jersey, we've witnessed monumental changes within the small township in which we reside. The cornfield is what I miss the most.

Talking, in person, to Marina. She is in South America and will remain there for the next two years or more. She will not be coming home to visit and I cannot afford (at this time) to go see her. We FaceTime through our iPod Touches - and we LOVE it - but it isn't the same and I find myself lying in bed at night sending her telepathic messages in the hopes of performing a Jedi mind trick. It goes like this: "You miss New Jersey and you want to live there for the rest of your life. You are truly happy and fulfilled when you live in Jersey." Sadly, I don't think she'll ever receive the message.

Easily purchasing Polaroid film. Why is this so difficult? And expensive? Yes, yes, I am aware that digital photography has taken over, and while I do embrace it, I want real film to remain available and affordable. Instant photos are wonderful and should never, ever be a thing of the by-gone years.

Kayla and Jaeden and their hugs and attention. Sadly, they spend each weekend now with their father, which is fantastic for them both, is a big downer for me, as now I see them less than ever. I stare at their picture on my desk and want to reach through the photo and chew on their cute god damn faces. They are so precious I can hardly stand it sometimes.

Clear skin and shiny straight hair, circa 1983. Oh how perfect I was then...Silky, girly hair that I could actually touch and run my fingers through and clear porcelain white skin with a dash of freckles. That bad perm in 1988 ruined my once fabulously beautiful hair and my Irish roots have given me the complexion of a Clogherhead fisherman.

Mark, John, and my Grandad.

And sitting on the wall and standing outside the café window smoking with Karen, Bishop, Jenifer, Rama, Susanah, Justin, Rick Ray, Kathryn, Danny, Rick, and Michael. It was easy and simple then and working there was my favourite job. The people I worked with were some of the best I've ever met. I travel back in time in my memory every so often and relive those moments over and over.

Chair at The Bala Theatre

What this scratchy colourless photograph doesn't tell you is that this lone chair in an enormous and empty space was actually in the world's most garish room. Bright mustard yellow and deep salmon coloured walls with crimson and olive carpeting made my brother and I stop and wonder when the Bala Theatre had last updated its decor. This particular room, just outside the men's washroom, was so outrageous that it was the most appealing part of our entire visit. It put Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to shame, and Lord knows that film had it's fair share of gaudy sets.

The Ceiling Fan in Fishtown

Snapped this photo Friday night while hanging at my cousin's place in Philly.

Woodstock, Vermont

June 20, 1906

Bishop's Lamp

She had style...

...I would love to have Bertha Peters' old glasses.

(photo kidnapped from becaruns etsy)

"Like I'd Ever Forget Tom" mix

On my last day of work at the café, Dave Gorgone brought me a farewell stack of fabulous mixes. This one in particular is one of the best. Dave Vaughan introduced me to Tom Waits in 2002 and later that year I turned Dave G. onto him. As far as I'm concerned, any mix that contains Tom Waits can't be anything other than spectacular.

(created May 8th, 2005)

Chalkboard Wisdom

Dutch Road

Loyal readers know of my bizarre penchant for photographing torn down, beat up houses. This one on Dutch Road has had my eye for weeks. It is impossible to look at it and not imagine what dinners looked like being served there so many years ago. What happened that this house came to look like this? Where are those who once called it home? What did the furniture look like in the living room? Were the people who inhabited this building happy? Where are they? The questions are endless and the not knowing can keep me up at night.

Christina Applegate...

I've always loved you. In my youth, I was one of those kids who were never allowed to watch Married with Children. My mother loathes the word slut. So much so that when bringing new friends home, we would pause at the threshold and prior to opening the screen door, I would turn to whoever: Jacob, Jenny, Audra, Buddy, Bishop, et cetera, that no matter what they did, under NO circumstances are they to say the word "slut" in front of my mother. Oh, and don't say anything positive about Goodfellas. My mother hates that movie. But like most children, I knew someone who did not have parental supervision like I did, and that person was Rachel. She was one of those latchkey kids whose parents both worked and didn't have time to be concerned about unattractive language on a Fox television show. And God bless them for that. As soon as I caught my first glimpse of you, Ms. Applegate, I knew that you were thee most beautiful girl in the whole world. Rachel decided to write to you and I followed suit. So when I was twelve years old I wrote you a fan letter on Garfield paper and sent it out to Hollywood. Getting this response from you was the highlight of the 80s for me and I've followed you ever since, and Lady, you still rock!

(is that the baddest most far-out fan letter response you've ever read? you're god damn right it is.)

Baby Love

Ladies and gentlemen, meet my Valentine - little Jackson Kent. He's cuter than a damn bumblebee and I believe I speak for him when I say that we completely adore one another.

Love - Cinema Style

While thinking of my top ten favourite romance/love story films, I noticed that they are all kinda sad. There's no doubt about it, each of them is most definitely a love story, however, they are love with a mixture of death, AIDS, dismemberment, separation (both geographically and across time), fistfights, arrests, paralysis, and plane crashes. But they are my favourites, and here they are, in order!

Somewhere in Time
The English Patient
Return to Me
Rocky
The Piano
Chapter Two
The Adjustment Bureau
Jeffrey
Casablanca
Love Affair (1939)

Paraphrase

The first poem I ever read by Hart Crane is still my favourite - it's the last two lines that made me swoon. What a gorgeous piece:

Of a steady winking beat between
Systole, diastole spokes-of-a-wheel
One rushing from the bed at night
May find the record wedged in his soul.

Above the feet the clever sheets
Lie guard upon the integers of life:
For what skims in between uncurls the toe,
Involves the hands in purposeless repose.

But from its bracket how can the tongue tell
When systematic morn shall sometime flood
The pillow-how desperate is the light
That shall not rouse, how faint the crow's cavil

As, when stunned in that antarctic blaze,
Your head, unrocking to a pulse, already
Hollowed by air, posts a white paraphrase
Among bruised roses on the papered wall.

Bzzzz....

Love Stories

Love Poems - Rene Ricard

Romeo and Juliet - Shakespeare

A Poet to His Beloved - Yeats

The Captain's Verse - Pablo Neruda

The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje

Dear Dear Brenda - Henry Miller

Twenty Love Poems - Pablo Neruda

The Bridges of Madison County - Robert Waller

Love Story - Erich Segal

Henry and June - Anaïs Nin

Me for you...

La Niña Bonita

Twenty Favourite Love Songs

The Very Thought of You by Nat King Cole
My Funny Valentine by Matt Damon
I Love Every Little Thing About You by Stevie Wonder
Someone Like You by Van Morrison
Galileo by Declan O'Rourke
I Only Have Eyes for You by The Flamingos
I Hadn't Anyone Till You by Ella Fitzgerald
I'm Confessin' That I Love You by Lizz Wright
Everyday by Jamiroquai
Never Too Much by Luther Vandross
Truly by Lionel Richie
Woman by John Lennon
I'll Be Your Mirror by The Velvet Underground with Nico
Johnsburg, Illinois by Tom Waits
Overlap by Ani DiFranco
Silly Love Songs by Wings
Bleed to Love Her by Fleetwood Mac
You Take My Heart Away by Nelson Pigford & DeEtta Little
All I Have To Do Is Dream by The Everly Brothers
Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce

Forever Love

Nana and Grandad

To Helena, Love Robert

Mark and Maggie

Most definitely a favourite couple from my childhood years, this photo is from Christmas 1991.

You Bowl Me Over, Sugar!

Love Birds

John & Maureen - October 1985

(photo by Mum)

Lovey Doves

Mum and Da - September 1976