Tree with Heads

printmaking is becoming more of an intellectual endeavor for some reason. and overly personal.

I'm making an etching trees with hand holding head.
Andrew (Mockler): where did you get this image
Me: one of my friends had a dream with trees with heads in it, and I decided to have the trees have arms because I had a dream with that.
Andrew: what was the tone of the dream?
Me: desperate? confused?
Andrew: what do trees usually symbolize?
Me: being lost. Also suicide, in the Inferno, the suicides are trees.
Andrew: really?...
Me: yea...in one of the levels, not too deep, they are trees because they didn't have control in life and so they don't ha control in death.

and also all of my prints have a cat wanting a fish that is held by some...unearthly thing, so he was asking about that as well.
and we on to talk about little red riding hood and hansel and gretel and he tells me that I should make prints of the Inferno (and how I'm young and therefore have plenty of time to do that), and look at Durer's print of Adam and Eve and Blakes prints of the Inferno.

Bio is PunkRock?

two days ago
Jeff: Margaret, if you had dough, what would you do with it?
Margaret: Dough?
yeah, dough
like cooking dough?
yeah, like the kind you make stuff with
I don't know, probably cinnamon buns?
would you need cinnamon stick and stuff for that?
I don't know, I haven't looked up a recipe yet
well, there's dough in the fridge....

so yesterday before chamber singing we made cinnamon buns, with cream-cheese frosting, they were good.

Jack was looking for me to ask what to do to look punk, because he wants to go to a punk-rock prom thing on campus. He said I was the closest person he knew to punk. I know very little about punk. Thankfully Rosette had had a punk phase and could help him.
(but I can feel flattered, he said that it's because I can pull it off/wear leather. I'm so cool, but I don't own anything spiky or studded and I don't have a mow-hawk or wear makeup or have tatoos or...)

and I re-cut Ethan's hair again (same, but shorter...one side is basically buzzed, except I did it with scissors). and before that I went to the freestore and got jeans that I plan on bleaching. and shoes. and a vest.

Class sign up was today-hell, of course. So far the only class I've been approved for is bio seminar, a one credit course that I'm taking because...I like bio. yup.

I also signed up for psych stats (mandatory to moderate), adult psychopathology, drawing I, photo 101. I want to sing again but for some reason it wasn't up on the list.

My last health psych class was today,.
And one of my pieces is being work-shopped tomorrow for creative non-fiction (this is the 2nd time this semester). so nervous.

sun setting on this year

Highlight of the day: sending Cat the text "I see you" while standing on the outside side of the window from were she works in the RKC (the science building). totally worth her facial expression.

Photos are from last Thursday, Adrienne's birthday (though it's not her in the picture, this is Cat). We went to Blithewood to watch the sun set.

Today was room draw. In the Bard system, Juniors go first, sophomores 2nd, freshman 3rd. Within each grade we get randomly assigned numbers. If you have a roommate you go by the smaller number of the two (I got 208 so we went by that). We all go to the gym and sit around and wait for our set of numbers to be called, hope the nicer rooms aren't crossed off as taken. It sucks if both you and your roommate get a bad draw though (Cat got pretty shafted...the people right behind her got put on the wait list for rooms)

Adrienne and I are going to be in Village A next year, which is 24 hour quite and alcohol free (last village dorm left), so we had to sign an extra agreement. [But those things mean nothing...Tewksbury is alcohol free too, in theory (not at all in practice), as are many others.]

It was kinda cute watching people paired off with their roommates, many people changed obviously. There were some surprises, but yeah. :)

Borange

Bardapalooza 2011 - Schedule

Time: 12:00 pm - 2:00 am
Location: Campus Center, Lawn

BARDAPALOOZA 2011- All Bard Bands, All Day Long
Saturday, April 30th
12pm - 2am @ Campus Center Tent (rain location = MPR)

12pm - Borange
Which is fine and all except that it sounds like instrumental animals dying outside of my window. and i'm trying to work on a psych project. This is a schedule just for the quad;

12:30pm - Telekinesis
1pm - Pistol Whip Orchestra
1:30pm - Elder Babaji & Spaghetti Black
2pm - Ray
2:30pm - Rosie Lopeman & the Sorry People
3pm - Killing Caroline
3:30pm - Voodoo Quartet
4pm - Ramrad
4:30pm - Urban Nostrils
5pm - Pogs
5:30pm - Bad Ju-Ju
6pm - Noble Beasts
6:30pm - Stellar Door
7pm - Elephant Highway
7:30pm - Fairweather Blonde
8pm - Brianna & the Blue-Eyed Soul
8:30pm - Tiger Lilies
9pm - Zombie Jazz
9:30pm - Odetta Hartman
10pm - Gryphon Rue & No Jeans
10:30pm - Acid Wash
11pm - Razrwang
11:30pm - Great Valley
12am - Ranch
12:30am - Dr. Skinnybones
1am - Steve Reiman
1:30am - Red Stripe

last night we went to Luna 61 to celebrate Adrinne's birthday (which was the day before). It was good food. In the evening the Diamond Doves played, and they were good too (ill put a couple photos up later). Odetta, who's part of a graduating Bard band (The Sparrows), played violin with them for a couple songs, but you could barely hear her because I guess the amp wasn't on. But you could tell she would have been really good. There were some of their relatives there, and this little boy with frog rain-boots running around and spinning. One of the relatives looked like a 50-year-old metal head, she had cloth braided into her hair, leather jacket, cluncky metal jewelry. and awkward dancing, so fun to watch.
There's a giant tent on the quad, that they spent all of Thursday putting it up, and now the grass on it is mashed, and it smells wonderfully of mud and stomped grass.
Rosette and I went and danced for a bit [ASO/LASO After Party 12:30-2am @ Campus Center Tent], there were so many people (and, as Rosette pointed out, the hipster move: cig held up in the air while the rest of the body moves. Also she was calling the dance a fuck fest). There were awkward guys on the side of the mass, looking confused into it, trying to figure out how to start dancing, or if to do so, and then the smell of smoke and weed and alcohol. But it was fun, I think both Rosette and I really needed to dance. And then we cleaned our leather boots, caked in mud, in the bathtub.

It stopped raining

It has been raining for days. raining and misting and mist-raining. now the birds are chirping.

on 4/20 Sam asked Rosette and me if there was any reason there were so many people in the woods. (people slinking away from the the green of Blithewood to smoke because the grass was wet)

also you know what's filling? carbs. like bread. replacement for passover? milk. no chance I'm getting osteoporosis now.


Just came back from a meeting with my adviser, because we have to sign up for courses soon. He's going on sabbatical so I have to switch for next semester.

part of choosing classes is looking up the teachers.
some teachers have reviews like this:

"Bradford Morrow is such a pompous, condesceding jerk. He has the potential to be a great teacher, since he's intelligent and eloquent---but unfortunately for all of us who made the mistake of taking his class, his arrogance transcends his brilliance. Get the reading list and read the books on your own."

and this

"oh god. brad morrow. i didn't think it was possible to name-drop consistently for three hours each monday, but brad found a way to do it. hey, if i had met cormac mccarthy in a parking garage once, i might name-drop too. forget about the actual class material!"

So I guess I'm not taking "New Directions in Contemporary Fiction". Thankfully he's only teaching that one class, and quite a few of the other teachers I looked up were listed either as "hidden gems" or otherwise brilliant.

Quietly, it plays

the company where Папа works got bought by e-bay. The Brahms concert went really well, I think. Sam, Adrienne, Rosette, Hannah and Andres all came. We got new music yesterday, more Brahms, but short pieces to be performed at Spring Fling. And I gave Sam a haircut, it still goes in a pony tail, but when it's out its shoulder length. He wants to look like an elf, so shorter is not an option. And I met with my creative nonfiction professor again today. But as I planned before, Sunday I'm just going to write. and Write. and WRITE.
Мама called me to say happy passover, Папа told me they are coming for my birthday, that they had thought about making it a surprise, but decided that it wouldn't work if I had other plans.
(And this year my birthday is the same in both calendars: 4th day of passover, April 22nd!)

yesterday:

eating pistachios and drinking peach tea on the gray carpet of the 3rd floor hallway with Hannah and Rosette. And then reading To the Light House on Hannah's bed while she sits at her desk. The light is dim, classical music plays, and we read each other passages in hushed voices.

At 1am I decided it was time to head to bed.

Let's track back

(and filter everything negative out, and also most of rehearsals):

I came back from a Brahms rehearsal: 7-10. We stood most of the time. The concert is tomorrow and Sat. Yesterday I cut Ethan's hair. It has three gradients of length: a mullet thing in the middle, his left is shortest, the right is about two inch. Also it was PC appreciation day. Since Angela is lenting, Rosette and Margaret made a vegan cake. I made a card, people signed it.

Saturday after the concert we stayed up watching Troy. Well, I didn't finish (at 5am I went to bed). It's really bad in so many ways, but you get to see most of Brad Pitt (Rosette and Adrienne were especially excited about this).
Friday after the concert...also stayed up, not watching anything. The concert went well, but the Beethoven is just a lot less fun to sing. The orchestra played the 8th, then we came on during intermission, and then most of the 9th was spent listening. But the piece repeats a lot, and when we sing, its really high up, its really loud. But also, its just for BOOM, there's little technical build, so it's less interesting. Also Leon Botstein (pres of the college) is conducting us, and he doesn't really like singers. meh, he moves like a poorly maneuvered puppet (he's conducting the Brahms Requiem too). The Brahms piece on the other hand, the chorus is the point, we have 90 pages of music (compared to 40 in the Beethoven).
tomorrow: "conducted by Leon Botstein, by members of the American Symphony Orchestra, Bard Conservatory Orchestra, Bard College Chamber Singers (James Bagwell, director), Vassar College Choir, and Cappella Festival Chamber Choir (Christine Howlett, director). Soloists: Faylotte Crayton, soprano; and Yohan Yi, bass-baritone."
(http://fishercenter.bard.edu/calendar/event.php?eid=111121&year=2011&month=4&day=15)

Monday the 4th I met with Celia Bland (creative non-fiction teacher), we have to meet twice in the semester. She's really intimidating because she just knows so much, and is very intelligent and put together. It was useful (okay: it was a lot less scary than I thought it would be. she said she can always recognize my work as mine. and also to maybe think more about motion.)
Sunday the 3rd at 3 I took photos for The Fashion Committee at Bard in the studio arts building. for like two hours straight. it was really fun though, the models where great, but it was easier for them to be in front of the camera in groups of 5, which was harder for me in terms of making them look good composition wise and facial expression wise. Adrienne, Rosette and I painted our toes and watched Catch Me If You Can.

The 1st there was an April Fools Day Contemporaneous concert with lots of very strange/experimental music. Also everyone was drunk that day, more than one person passed that was being supported by a friend.

on a side note that doesn't make sense in this context: I have really good friends here.

on another side note, there was a thunderstorm and really hard rain, so lots of earthworms came out. I remembered a poem I wrote two years ago. (i mean, by default it's shit, but still, here it is)

Worm

love;
prodding through water logged dirt
segments contracting, extending up
twisting blindly through chill water
oootrying not to suffocate
squirming, as wheels, rolling blackness, pass
oooflattening sections of pink
pointlessly crossing the grainy pavement
trying to burrow toward the other side

where
perhaps
the rain has stopped