Music Monday-7/14/2014 The Five Stairsteps

Aleathia says:

Last night was really rough.  My first night at the new hospital and like everyone else I suffered the "I can't do this...I wanna go home" feelings that can happen with change.  I was feeling a bit disillusioned and maybe that is because I don't have a process yet and not everything I need to run a shift is unpacked.

I came home whining about it.  Michael was great and said that change is hard and every shift it will get a little better.  I fell into a deep coma sleep and woke up a bit refreshed and feeling a little less doomed.  So in honor of keeping the faith and having hope I'm gonna play a little number from The Five Stairsteps.  That's right suckas, I used to watch Soul Train every chance I got!

OM-7/13/2014 Spiritual Recovery Through Love

Aleathia says:

Yesterday I was talking to my boss about the move to our new hospital and how hard it has been on everyone's families, and how glad they will all be to get things "back to normal".  Somehow we got on the subject of gastric bypass and how someone who had gone through this procedure told her she should do it.

First of all, I find that to be seriously rude.  The person should have just come right out and called her fat, because that is the only reason I can think of that a person would suggest this surgery to another.  But who are they to decide if we look fat or not?  People that undergo this procedure for anything other than severe health reasons tend to have body image problems.  Do they feel they can't be loved if they are not a mirror image of the social "norm" or the social expectation?

My boss and I talked about the serious implications of the surgery itself and how the long term effects have not been clearly defined. We have both seen people with metabolic problems, serious stomach issues, absorption problems, and psychological problems that develop after getting skinny doesn't solve their relationship/family/friend/self image problems.  I qualify for this surgery, but I have never entertained the thought of getting it.

My OM moment came when my boss was telling me that her husband had once stood up for her publicly when someone said she had gotten too heavy.  He said that he loved everything about her....her curves, her flaws, her wonders.  That is what love is. We all have flaws and love has been known to add a few handles, but as long as quality of life and health remain good, who is to say we have to be skinny? We were driving back to the old facility to close it down and I thought about how lucky I am as well.

2003 at my heaviest and saddest

Since I was 12 I have been heavier than I would have liked.  I never looked like the other girls and I even had an eating disorder from it.  I hated my body.  I didn't respect it, didn't want to look at it.  I spent many a time crying in front of the mirror feeling like I was being punished. Then Michael came along.  He refused to let me talk bad about myself.  He didn't want to hear it and said the lack of confidence was unbecoming.

It has been a journey over the last 3 years, but for the first time in my life I love myself from top to bottom. This is a miraculous thing for the soul.  It allows the person you really are to shine forth.  It gives time for laughter and contemplation of the world.  It expands ones horizons when you are no longer trapped in your own tiny universe of self-loathing.  Michael gave me the opportunity to grow into the best woman I can be. He loves me, all of me, and I am truly blessed for that.

2014...40 lbs lighter through love and hard work...but mostly love.

Don't let people drag you down.  If you are truly unhappy about what you look like then examine how you got there; explore how you can move up from there.  Gaining weight doesn't happen overnight so don't expect to lose it that way either.  You have to want the change, you'll have to work hard for it, but do it for you and no one else.  You'll thank yourself later.

Quills and Frills-7/12/2014 John Grochalski

Ally says:

Starting with the Last Name Grochalski, published by Coleridge Street Press, is the newest poetry collection by John Grochalski, author of the poetry collections The Noose Doesn't Get Any Looser After You Punch Out, and Glass City as well as the novel, The Librarian.

Here's a sample:

starting with the last name grochalski

starting with the last name 
grochalski

i could trace my lineage
down the bar

at sufak's round corner
on saturday afternoons in pittsburgh

planting roots in the linoleum floor
with grandfathers and uncles and a stray cousin or two

starting with their last names
at the other end

working my way back down the bar

beer and shots
gambling pools and stray packs of smokes

tracing the lineage of everything
that emptied generations

of family fortune 
into the rusty till



bug noir

sure enough
he was resting right there

underneath a table

right where the dame 
told me he'd be

lime green

a million legs
and a million eyes
looking back at me

trying to blend in

i knew the mug

had seen his type 
crawling across

a million walls
and a million floors

but this time
i had him cornered, see

i pulled out my piece

but then i thought better

i blew at him

sent him scurrying
across the tile

the dame
just looked at me

i knew what she expected

what all dames wanted

she wanted
blood and guts

her eyes looked hungry 
for murder

but i just winked at her

doffed my hat

killin's not my thing
sweetheart

i said

before walking away

back into 
the fog of night



inventing abstraction

she sits in the foyer
she says, you're just the man
i've been waiting for

i tell her that it feels like i've been dragged through glass

she hands me a twisted paperclip
says, take this

i tell her that i'm too old for acceptance

she leads me to a window that is open
with a gust of wind blowing in
and says, this has been driving me nuts

i tell her that the insane are closer to god in their way

she says, see if you can get that paper clip
to brace the window shut

and i tell her that there's no saving us now.

she says, a strong guy like you
should be able to jimmy-rig that window

so i tell her that i'm just no good anymore
i'm almost a month away from thirty-nine
and i've never made a dollar that didn't try to kill me
that i can't even get the neighbor across the street
to fix his house alarm

she says, a nice man like you can probably do anything

i tell her that i'm going to get drunk again today
that all those whiskey and wine bottles in the basement
are my cold sacrifices

but she says, if only you could get that paperclip in there 
then things would be so much better

and i think she probably 
doesn't read the newspapers

she says, there, like that
get that paperclip between those holes

and i try and i try and i try

i hand her back the twisted metal
and tell her that it's no use
and the world is full of broken windows

and broken people
with and without love

wind gusts and paperclips

some who understand what kandinsky was doing
when he had moscow by the balls

and the rest of us
who are just trying to get alone
with a quieter kind of death

John Grochalski aims straight for the heart of things. With equal measures of acid and awe, he lights out for territory originally assayed by the legendary Charles Bukowski. Roll down the windows, fire up the imagination, and pass the bottle: you're in for one helluva ride."

                                                                             -Don Wentworth, Editor, Lilliput Review

Amazon    Website    Twitter   Goodreads

John Grochalski has kept a daily (yes DAILY as in he writes a new poem for it EVERY SINGLE DAY) poetry blog since 2008 called Winedrunk Sidewalk.

And if you fashion yourself the lucky type, you can enter to win a copy of Starting With The Last Name Grochalski. 

Regardless, you should pick up a copy of Starting With the Last Name Grochalski. You won't be disappointed.

                                                                                                         

Art Bomb-7/11/2014 MoMA, Arthur Tress

Ally says:

One of the best things about living in a city like New York is access to the museums. A few years ago, as a Christmas gift to ourselves, my husband and I got a membership to the Museum of Modern Art. This 6 story building on 53rd street has become like a second home. For a girl who works weekends I manage to clock a lot of hours in there.

And why not?

Look at this collection:

Reclining Nude - Modigliani

Les Demoiselles D'Avignon - Pablo Picasso

Masks Confronting Death - James Ensor

Monument to Balzac - Rodin

Dance 1 - Matisse

Persistence of Memory - Dali

Self Portrait with Cropped Hair - Frida Kahlo

And that's just like less than 1 percent. Each time I go to the MoMA it's packed. I get it. If I were visiting NYC, I would make sure I went there too. I mean, my goodness, they have Starry Night!

It's as beautiful in real life as you think it will be. And yet.....and yet....every single time I go to the museum I watch people walk up to the art, take a picture with their cell phone and then look at it on their phone and I just want to scream - "It's right there! In real life! That isn't a print! Why do you want to look at a digital version??"

Except what would be the point, right? I understand that the museum allow pictures (though I kind of wish they didn't) and that people want memories (Pictures or it didn't happen) but I swear 9 times out of 10 they don't even look at the real live painting before them. They just look at their picture.

Anyway, end rant. If you're in NYC, please try and make it to the MoMA. I know that with all the museums in town your time is limited but I promise you, the MoMA is worth it. And it's free on Fridays from 4-8!

If you come by, chances are good you'll find me standing here, in front of the most beautiful piece of art in that building. Van Gogh's Olive Trees. In my head, I'm sitting on that low branch right in the middle, feet swinging, watching the breeze race through the grass, happy as can be in Saint-Remy, France.

Aleathia says:

Hey Brooklyn....here's looking at you.

This is Arthur Tress.  He was born in Brooklyn, NY in the 1940's.  He started taking photographs when he was 12 years old and never turned back.  He is known for amazing work in staged surrealism and expositions of the human body.  His work is stunning in black and white and it really speaks to the young high school student in me who spent all her extra hours in the dark room trying to get just the right exposure; to the girl who nearly got kicked out of school for producing images contradictory to her teacher's views.

I recently saw an article stream through my Facebook feed about Arthur Tress and a collection of his photography called The Dream Collector.  He started this series in the late 1960's and in the 70's compiled the works into a book.  The main theme of the book are images based on childhood dreams which we all know lend themselves to the surreal very easily.

"Flood Dream" by Arthur Tress

"Singing Chair" by Arthur Tress

"Boy in TV Set" by Arthur Tress

This one is probably my favorite of the grouping that I have seen and I can't quite seem to find the name of the photograph:

Arthur Tress has many different themes he works with...some were a bit more risque than I felt like posting this morning.  I'm not sure folks wanted the Full Monty for breakfast.  But he does have a collection called Shadows which is very near and dear to my heart as I am presently working on two series of works, one called Reflections and the other Divisions.  I think looking at the negative space of things takes a keen eye.  I can only hope to be as talented as him someday.

If I read his bio correctly, he should have some of his work up at the MoMA in New York so when you are check out Ally's suggestions you should seek out Arthur Tress for the full effect.

Foodies-7/10/2014 Food Porn

Aleathia says:

FOOD PORN

Seriously....if I could eat gluten I would lock myself in a room filled with these French delights.  You'd find me in a sugar coma with a smile on my face and chocolate on my fingers.  Amen.

Lit Bits-7/9/2014 Robert E. Howard, Saul Bellow

Joe says:

During my glaringly obvious absence from writing for y'all here, I've been spending a decent amount of time camping. And while camping, my go-to reading material has been the Del Rey collections of the original stories of Conan the Barbarian. Written by Robert E. Howard with various illustrations dispersed throughout, these collections are beautiful paperbacks full of beautiful sword-and-sorcery fantasy.

Howard was a contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft, which is how I was initially exposed to him. Together with Clark Ashton Smith, Lovecraft and Howard dominated the pulp magazines of the 1910s and 1920s: Lovecraft with his widely-known brand of cosmic horror; Howard with his fantasy (and occasional bouts of horror); Smith with his decidedly individual blend of the two. These three, with other contemporaries of the time, are now known as the Lovecraft Circle, and it's been wonderful exploring their various works to see how they influence and entwine with each other.

My knowledge of these stories before reading them ran something like this:

1.) These were fantasy stories that connected with the Mythos, somehow.

2.) The 2011 Conan the Barbarian film was kinda neat.

And that was about it. On a whim I committed to all three volumes, and am almost finished with the first. One thing that became readily apparent was that, although the genre is quite different from Lovecraft's, Howard can create an eerie atmosphere just as well, and often better, than Lovecraft himself. The story lines might seem kind of trite when generalized (Conan saves the scantily-clad woman! Conan defeats the evil wizard! Conan saves a different scantily-clad girl!) but really, aren't we all in it for the journey rather than the destination?

This particular illustration, from "The Tower of the Elephant", is one of my favorites thus far: Conan, during the part of his life where he was a scoundrel-for-hire, successfully enters the eldritch Elephant Tower and meets... well, you can very well see what he meets. Howard's writing is descriptive on the verge of being flowery, and everything on this ancient Earth is extravagant: the tower itself is carved completely from silver. Whole rooms are surfaced with precious gems. Thrones are carved from single, giant pieces of ivory. So yes, in the end this story is "Conan hears a rumor of a great treasure, Conan goes to steal great treasure, Conan kills evil wizard in the process," but the whole scene and mood combine to create a wonderfully rich atmosphere with just enough foreboding to keep this fabled history tense and brooding.

In summation: Conan stories are fun and dark and a wonderful thing to have on your lap while sitting around a campfire for five days straight.

Aleathia says:

This year has been hard on the reading front for me.  It seems after I turned 40 my attention span disappeared.  I am less satisfied to sit still reading a book than I used to be.  This pains me, honestly. I did finish the last book I was reading.  It was a great book, but I felt like I would never finish it.  

This time around I had my kid pick a letter of the alphabet and I went to our library and chose an author with the last name beginning with "B".  There was a thin, sleek book on the shelf by Saul Bellow called Seize the Day.

Years ago when I started reading all the Pulitzer Prize winning novels for Fiction, Bellow's Humboldt's Gift was one of the first ones I read.  His language is smooth and cutting at the same time and really sinks into my brain effortlessly.  This particular book is about a man in the 30's-40's after the stock market crash who was a child of privilege who never lived up to his parents expectations.  It is about his journey navigating this society pretending to have money when he doesn't.  He lives his life a disappointment to his family.  I always find it funny that I don't read Saul Bellow more.  When I get back into him I am always pleased.

“One thing should be clear to you now. Money-making is aggression. That's the whole thing. The functionalistic explanation is the only one. People come to the market to kill. They say, 'I'm going to make a killing.' It's not accidental. Only they haven't got the genuine courage to kill, and they erect a symbol of it. The money. They make a killing by fantasy.” --Saul Bellow, Seize the Day

Let's Go Somewhere-7/8/2014 High Tor

Aleathia says:

This summer I am definitely missing our trip to our getaway cabin in the woods.  A friend at work turned me on to a website called The Quiet Place.  It is a place where you can browse through 19 different cabins scattered throughout the Finger Lakes Region.  There are cozy two person cabins like the one Michael and I have been to called High Tor.

This cottage is very modernly renovated though it looks rustic on the outside.  It has an indoor fireplace, warm and inviting colors, and great views from anywhere in the house.

It is equipped with television and cable and a dvd player as well as options for music.  It comes fully furnished and the kitchen is equipped for cooking.  They also provide a gas grill if that is what you like to do. You just need to bring your own food.

We chose this cabin for one reason only....the insanely awesome bathroom.  I know we must seem like OCD clean freaks and maybe we are, but it is a dream come true experience.  Each time we stayed there we found excuses to take another shower.  This is a dual sided shower with all sorts of crazy jets, river stone tiles and it even has a bench!  Best shower ever.

The back of the house features a large deck that looks into the woods and from the hot tub you can watch the stars at night while the breeze keeps you cool.  

There is also a nice little secluded area in the yard where you can sit in front of the fire pit.  We cooked hot dogs over the fire one year and watched the fireflies and listened to the natural world around us.

We started going to this place as a getaway from bad memories.  Michael's mother passed on his birthday which is always depressing, so we started going there as something fun to try and replace those negative memories with something good.  We didn't go this year for several reasons.  We bought a house and the finances just don't allow the expenditure with everything we have had to buy to get this place going and last year my aunt died on my birthday while we were there.  We also quit drinking and lord knows we did one hell of a ton of that at High Tor.  So now we will have to find a new quiet place to make memories at.  If you get the opportunity you should really check this place out.  We have fond memories and lots of laughs. These cabins are a great way to rekindle love or to just get away from everyday stress.  Enjoy.