The Wayback Machine - http://web.archive.org/web/20041202222945/http://www.livejournal.com:80/users/laughingwoman/
things i forgot to tell you   
10:35am 02/12/2004
 
music: mirah-body below-advisory committee
for those of you who know me, i've mostly always been a long-haired person. there was a story by colette, where she describes at length her friend's long hair. i've always loved this description:

long hair, barbaric adornment, fleece to which clings an animal smell, hair that one cherishes in secret for secret purposes, that one displays when twisted or plaited and conceals when it is dishevelled; who bathes in your torrents rippling to the waist? a woman surprised when she is doing her hair, flies as though she were naked. amorous dalliance sees no more of you than the passerby. unbound, you fill the bed with a mesh that irritates a sensitive epidermis, trailing weeds that confuse a wandering hand. there is just one moment, in the evening, when the pins are withdrawn and the shy face shines out for an instant from between the tangled waves; and there is a similar moment in the early morning. and because of those two moments everythign that i have just written against long hair counts for nothing at all.

aside from me not thinking any of that description sounds in any way opposed to long hair (more like a celebration of it, to me!), i've almost always been able to apply this description to myself. but not anymore. i've cut it all off. sort of an external move meant to excise other psychic baggage. or some such thing. in any case, i give you, short-haired [info]laughingwoman:



(and if i hate it, it'll be past my shoulders by summer.)
 
     dear reader 24 - sing me a torch song
 
strange question   
09:56pm 30/11/2004
 
mood: cautious
i have a book i'd like to give a friend for christmas, but this friend has parkinson's and i don't know whether she has trouble reading books or not anymore. when i spend time with her she has involuntary shaking on one side of her body, so i'm not sure that the book would be the best thing to give her--though i know she'd love the stories. does anyone out there have any experience with parkinson's?
 
     dear reader 6 - sing me a torch song
 
the unbridled christmas list   
11:41am 26/11/2004
 
mood: wishy
making lists like this reminds me how truly unique (read: unrepentantly full of hopeless and expensive wish) i am. food and art. art and food. eating and making. making eating. my list is such a reflection of my natal chart, it's numbing.

anyway, the rules, and the list:

* Post a list of 10 holiday wishes. They can be anything at all, just make sure you really do want them. (Be sure to post contact info if your wishes require it.)
* Be sure to post some version of these guidelines with your list.
* Search for other people's lists and, if you see a wish you can grant, try to do it! Maybe the book you were about to trash is the book someone's been trying to find. Maybe you can teach someone how to give a good massage, or you know how to make those special twelve-fingered gloves someone wants, or have a contact for free olive oil, whatever. Maybe you just have an extra five (or five thousand) bucks and would really like to surprise somebody. Do it anonymously or not--totally up to you.

* tea canisters. air-tight ones, several of them, from here. i have more tea than is manageable (currently at 20+ loose leaf variety), and they're all dangerously improperly stored and if someone gives me tea canisters, i will happily repay in tea.

* space to make space for myself. and the good parts of me to fill up the space.

* almost anything from green integer press. their books are wonderful, perfect take-with-you sizes, and they only publish the wondrous, beatific and thoughtfilled. currently i already have lyn hejinian's my life and hervé guibert's ghost image. they are a wonderful entity, those folks at green integer.

* a paella pan, a tagine , a really good mandoline, chinese clay pot(s), and/or an old european-style clay (earthenware) pot that you can slow-cook meat and the like, that can withstand oven temperatures and is lead-free.

* a kitsune mask, or a kagure mask. there's a photo project i've been wanting to do...

* ninth-gate territory books (at least in terms of price): eikoh hosoe's kamatachi, daido moriyama's bye bye photography, masahisa fukase's bukubuku, and nobuyoshi araki's araki. woot! woot! i need to marry a patron, or an antiquarian dealer that specializes in asian art.

* a lomo camera . the lc-a (although i also really like the action sampler) . that, and the recipe for the kind of color [info]stark seems to effortlessly attain in her amazing photos again and again and again. this generation's answer to william eggleston, that one.

* this shunga print by kunisada, from thingsjapanese.com.

* patent gold leaf , (the kind that is not loose), and multiple books of it. so i can continue to make these. hey, it's expensive to run gold through a color copying machine, yeah? (and if anyone actually sends me some, i will send you a gold leaf photo. promise.)

* a nigella lawson cookbook (i have forever summer, but none of the others, a book about cooking with tea, or a collection of your own favorite kick-ass recipes.

what can i say? i'm complex girl with tried and true (and truly expensive) tastes. but i try and paint the world in good food, good conversation, and good aaaarrt. tell me what untenable things you want.

oh, and: my addy (should any of you actually be capable or inclined to fill any of these wishes): )
 
     dear reader 6 - sing me a torch song
 
morning visual   
08:43am 26/11/2004
 
mood: show-and-tell


from here.
 
     dear reader 2 - sing me a torch song
 
thankful thoughts   
01:42pm 25/11/2004
 
music: interpolantics
i think often about how those i've "met" online have become actual presences to me, even if we've never Actually met. how familiar i am with the cadence of their written thoughts, their idiosyncratic voices, quirks, loves, hates, obsessions and daily selves. i can smile absently in a day when i think of [info]champignon's love/lust for interpol (and her ultra-snazzy fandom pic with carlos--rawr!), or of [info]burkean's being funny and driven while teaching students (or for his deep, abiding love of Certain Girlish Drinks), or of [info]cinemama's truly unique eye and dark and ironic view of things in general which i share with her. i love what you all have given to me everyday just by the act of sharing bits of self to me (and others), and i am humbled by the trust and communion that occurs here in this space on a fairly frequent basis.

i am thankful for friends, truth, vulnerability and feeling.

i am thankful for those who continue to give these things even in my absence or distance.

it's thanksgiving and while i've been curled up into my psycho-biographical fetal ball here for a while, i have a lot to be thankful and humble and proud of. and i'm thinking of all your wonderful individual selves whilst i go throughout the rest of this day and my holiday-ish activities: making lumpia, having dinner with friends, seeing silly escapist (and probably bad) movies. you're all at the table in the thanksgiving in my head. and i am about to pour some fabulous wine. have some.
 
     dear reader 1 - sing me a torch song
 
circling my thoughts   
09:43am 13/11/2004
 
music: sam phillips
before we be roten, can we first not be rype?

--g. chaucer
 
     dear reader 6 - sing me a torch song
 
mr. olympia   
08:47am 09/10/2004
 
mood: snarky


found here.
 
     dear reader 5 - sing me a torch song
 
i give you...the tomy camera!   
07:13pm 02/10/2004
 
mood: full of misspent distractions


The completely new camera where as for the wonderful shot, the love dog takes. You just attach to the love dog OK!

the camera is easy to use and operate. just use these three easy steps:


1. The substance is installed in the neck of one.

2. The button of remote control is pushed.

3. You can take the photograph of the eye line of one.




i've been telling people about the tomy camera all week. you can get one here (and improve your engrish in the meantime)
 
     dear reader 2 - sing me a torch song
 
another huge photographic passing   
03:38pm 01/10/2004
 
mood: frivolous
richard avedon has just died.

the man was a workhouse, a photographic force that sometimes reminded me of rodin in his use of so many others to help accomplish an artistic vision.

here's one of him at work on one of his most famous images:



i've had mixed feelings about him and his images as a photographer, the way he could exploit people for a photograph. but the fact that someone who had developed a recognizably iconic way of seeing people has died.

hrm.
 
     sing me a torch song