Quotes To Make The Mind Boggle

Left alone with my imagination (which face it, can get a little annoying given too much free reign), I've decided to type in some famous quotes where the ideas of the writer or speaker are fully intwined with the ideals of that person...or at least their famous personas. It's all in the mind you know...

"I love talking about nothing, it is the only thing I know anything about."
-Oscar Wilde

"I would rather watch somebody buy their underwear than read a book they wrote."
-Andy Warhol

"I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars."
-Abby Hoffman

"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad."
-Salvador Dali

I love quotes, I love reading anything that goes on in anyone's head. It's upsetting and neurotic to think that what people say isn't exactly what they feel or think. Don't believe in the phrase "brutally honest", brutal is brutal. Brutal is awful. Honest is good.

My last quote?

A very fun one at that.

"Facts are the enemy of truth."
-Man Of La Mancha (Said by Don Quixote)

Wonderfully weird for the weird at heart, but also a predecessor to Steven Colbert's "Truthiness"? Ahh that kind of ruins it.

Steven Colbert as Don Quixote...Hmm

Re-TREAT!!

I am officially in hiding.

If I can retreat to the bedroom (which I've decorated in festive string lights and a glitter lamp...I need something to stare aimlessly at!) and get back to artwork that I love, I'll be okay.

If I can hide from the wrath of my mother and the gnawing self importance of my stepfather, I'll be happy.

And If I can teach Trey to use a phone so I can keep in touch with him, I'll feel a whole lot less guilty. Ugh.

I'm also retreating from a good deal of my generation who according to msnbc.com has been labelled as the "me" generation. It kind of is. There's a deep value of "insta-celebrity" and well, yourself. Not the actual you, but the you that's created in your head or you'd hope to be.

There's also been a lot of competition lately, and I don't like competition. The most (scarily enough) coming from my mother who has decided that anything that I can do she can do better or anything not so charming about her is not so charming about me.

I've noticed the only way to ask her for help is to flatter her endlessly until she seems fluffed enough and then ask her. Then flatter her more in case it blows up.

It isn't brown nosing, I don't do brown nosing...It's the closest thing to a human sacrifice they have in New Jersey.

I love my mom, I just can't...I don't know. It's too upsetting having your mother want you to be homely, dumb, and untalented. And forget wanting it, deciding it has to be. The truth is she's just repeating what her mother did to her. So where does that leave me? Will I do it to my unknown, unborn, and un-conceived child? If so, time to bang my head for an indefinite period of time!

So I'm hiding, and I'm not a recluse. I'm just not in touch with certain people.

And how are you? ;)

Happy Tuesday :)

Love,

Arabella

When my eyes beheld an eerie sight

Not so pleasant sights of the week:

1.Anna Nicole Smith's clown video.

I still haven't quite gotten over that one.

2. Scary altered 65 year old trio of collagen abuse that confronted me and Muzzy on the street and then proceeded to ask me how old she was (She looks a lot younger and acts it so people are often confused)I responded happily TEN and waited for the normal conversation about how energetic and friendly she was. I instead received a "She's a OOOOLLLLDDDD lady, she's going to be gone soon!!" Then they began to giggle. I wondered two things simultaneously: One, how could they speak with those lips. Two, She looks half her age and has had a lot less work done than you.

What is wrong with people? Seriously. Who says that??? It probably doesn't help that Cool Yule passed away yesterday morning. I did get to have a nice long talk with him on Monday night when I realized this was it. I don't understand how I'm a bit odd for quietly mourning a friend and good model for art, but others can mourn the loss of a shoe with great remorse. He's very important to me. I'm not just going to think of him as an object and replace him to fill a void. Seriously though, who wants to be accosted by something that looks like The Grinch with inflated lips in the first place? Much less be told something strange.

I know I don't.

3: The Victoria's Secret on Broadway. I just want to buy lingerie. I don't want to be sprayed with something smelly. I don't need to know what the Victoria's Secret motto is. I definitely don't need a clevage enhancing bra with superpowers and jingle bells and x-ray vision...In twelve different colors.

I left with a bag full of pretty panties, a sea faring pink dog....And a big headache...But was it a sexy headache? You bet!

And 4. Giuliani's running for president!!!! NOOO!

So the Scooter Libby trial progresses, England has pulled out of the Iraq war (GOOD!C'mon America! Your turn!), and I really dislike Heather Mills. She's crazy!

Hooray for The Beatles!

Hey, How did this happen?

I can't imagine how or why but I'm very pleased to see it.

I was also pleased that the so called battered video of Snoopy Come Home was not battered at all. And I cried through most of it. I still am!

I think the weather's getting warmer, maybe it's false hope BUT I think it will :)

I came home to a livid Dad who explained to me that my fish Yule had passed away. Or at least he thought he had. Cool Yule the siamese fighting fish who had been rescued from a toilet seat a few years ago had become the insular observer staple in my room. My father handed me the net and I went into the room (of course crying) to pay my last respects. He explained I could get a new siamese fish and I told him I never would. I would have to get a different fish if I did. However the idea of handling him with that stupid net that he hated seemed ridiculous.

I unplugged the tank and reached in when suddenly I felt something slap against my hand. Yule is not dead was not dead and did not particularly enjoy being thought of as dead. The best explanation being "What the fuck!?" and the second being "Fuck you!!!"

I never thought of him as polite anyway.

Ecstatic that my friend isn't dead, I had to explain that he mostly did sleep. I know he'll die eventually. He's outlived quite a few fish. The age that his breed usually die at is two. He's three and a half. He basically sleeps 14 hours a day, looks crabby and eats. He loves his medicine. He's a cranky old bat. Or fish. I love him so, so very much.

Happy Non-Death Day I suppose :)

So here's to an old fish and a movie that makes me cry...NIGHT!!!!!!!!





Love,

Arabella

Just because you wear a wallet near your heart, you think you're twice as smart. You know that isn't fair.

I was horrified again today to realize that the quality of art in movies, of intelligence in movies had sunk just a bit lower again. It isn't all movies of course and to say so would be belligerent. It's only some. I could (and do) avoid it in so many other movies, they just aren't my taste. But it was the children's movies that I found difficult to swallow.

The children in those movies weren't children at all. Not any I've known.

Where had all the real children gone? And where were their real emotions?

Children as written in recent movies are bland and predictable. They will coo and "wahoo" their way through actions, they can be stupid and evil, and they don't usually understand anything under the surface. A giant THING must occur for them to react or be interested. They're cute. Whatever cute may be, they're it.

I have never met a completely idiotic child. Cruel yes. They do "wahoo" but happily, mostly for an adult's appreciation. They focus on and love something on a much smaller scale. If an adult raises that scale, their scale for what is interesting will of course raise as well. You can give a mouse a cookie, you can give a boy a gameboy...of course what will they want next?

The best real child in any movie in my opinion is Le Ballon Rouge. You have the mind of a child, as simple and raw and just as complicated as any adult...Possibly more. And you have an object in which love is projected. The boy barely speaks in the film but you understand everything he feels. You miss the feeling. That is a real child. That was a real child. I believe the director's son. Not an actor paid to go through motions you believe children will see themselves as or hope to be and adults will giggle over.

What is an intelligent child viewed as in movies or television? Precocious.

I dislike that word so much. It's an insult. An enormous and beautiful soul grows in every small child and they're viewed as precocious??

I still wander toward shop windows and look at balloons, and think just for an instant...Could I buy one? Would it follow me? Would I love it as much as anything that someone could possibly adore in the world?

A child could. They do. Children can act out the parts of the "wahoo's" and big screens but they'll always immerse themselves in Pascal. It isn't even a character at that point. Most adults feel horrible when they see the balloon crumple. And everyone wants to be carried away by hundreds of beautiful balloons that come searching for you at your need.

On the rage of pubescence (and a few years afterward) I turned to my dad on an outing and expressed my hope of never losing the uncanny ability to feel everything as deeply as you do as a child. That I wouldn't be afraid of it all coursing through me. He smiled and without turning to me said I wouldn't. I hope I didn't, and I hope I don't.

I also hope cinema gets a lot better. I think it might just do the opposite.

Please keep releasing the classics on DVD!

Speaking of classics. My father called me (possibly sensing my impending doom because of bad movies) and informed me King Of Hearts was on at nine...And he had dug about and found my battered copy of Snoopy Come Home which I had been sobbing over. I didn't woohoo. I did jump and thank him excitedly. Then I did the horrible bobble head dance I hope no one ever witnesses!

King Of Hearts was excellent. I loved it! And my complete adoration for Alan Bates only grows and grows and grows...

And grows.

Goodnight!

Quote

"It's only with the heart that one can see clearly, what's essential is invisible to the eye."

New YorkiTude

It is freezing out, actually the temperature is much higher than yesterday or the day before..

10 degrees! Winter has arrived and set up as the unwanted guest. Usually a relative, not someone you're particularly close to and quite often an instigator of arguments.

February in New York (February in general) is quite possibly one of the more boring months of the year. A few days ago the nasty winter blues had not completely set in. Everyone looked at each other incredulously and laughed about the drop in degrees.

Now everyone's just glaring and cursing under their breath. This is probably my least favorite time of year. A New Yorker becomes dangerously close to befitting the "arse" stereotype. I don't believe in the "New York 'Tude". I don't really believe in any nasty attitude at all. It's not nice, it doesn't help anyone's day and it doesn't really help the jerk who gave attitude in the first place.

I do however revert to it only under the most extreme circumstances. This usually includes various "interesting people" name dropping, dressing completely in black, and tut tutting anyone who doesn't know anything about anything which obviously is something that New Yorkers would know.

I am not proud of this, and it only happens once in a blue moon. I'm a turtle dipping it's head back into the shell unhappy with the surroundings. These are the set off parts of the conversations and how the evil 'tude pops up:

1: Your Parents are both artists, you must be uniquely f**ked up. Children should have good stable parents! New York is a horrible place to raise children! Poor, poor you.

2: New York isn't anything special, I've been to the Hard Rock Cafe loads of times! It's dirty in New York and people are deranged...BUT I am very hep and I am like so completely awesome. Did you know I've been to the ESPN ZONE?...I don't think you act like a New Yorker. Are you sure you were raised here.

(Ugh, more than once has this occurred)

And number three is the big one: A person (who is from anywhere else in the world) is being a huge jerk and snot to anyone who crosses their path. They are without a doubt the most fabulous person in the room and no one can top that. Go into character and watch them quiet down.

I don't do the lovely rolling of the eyes and gnashing of the teeth. My voice stays the same and I smile throughout the conversation as though nothing has changed. I don't push in the subway and I hold the door open. Oh and I do make eye contact with people...That's something else I heard. Supposedly no one makes eye contact?

Pray for an early spring as the New Yorkers are getting cranky. With or without their coffee.

Have a good week!

New Jersey Nougat

I'm out of Manhattan visiting my mother for a few days, and tonight is all about baby brother. Which means we've done a few crafts, he's learned about Buffalo Springfield and Keith Moon...He's had his hair styled this way and that.

He's explained to me Star Wars, and told me what Beatles tee shirt he'd like. Now he's up past his bedtime and watching me sort through photos my favorite being this one. It was a great hairstyle he wanted after I showed him CryBaby with Johnny Depp.

Mr. Cool my little rockabilly is waiting patiently for books to be read to him.

Have a great weekend to everyone about!


Love,

Arabella

Substitute

It's a Keith Moon day. I don't know why but it is. It should be interesting :)

More information later :)

Love,

Arabella