Name:Rachel Country:United States State:Arkansas Metro:Hot Springs Gender:Female
Interests:Writing. Reading - anything I can get my hands on. Music. Hiking. Anything outdoorsy really. Looking at the stars (you would not believe how into astronomy i am). And i love coffee more than i should. I like shopping in used bookstores and art-supply stores and I love looking at art although I am horrible at it, except for basic layout and calligraphy. Well, I sculpt too. And photography. So I just contradicted my own statement. Being in theatre makes me ecstatically happy. So I guess you could say I am a typical raging bohemian. I like cussing unapologetically. I like doing things that shock people and seem entirely out of character for me. Sometimes I love God. Right now we are mutually seeing other people. I love being so far behind on fashion that i'm actually ahead. I like making people laugh. I like arguing. I like building things. I like cool-aid. I like the fact that i was a geek long before it became popular. Oh, yes, and I've also taken up dumpster diving. Much fun to try. Expertise:Why even ask that question? Hmmm... let me think... I am really good at getting into trouble. And getting other people into trouble. But I'm also the master of getting out of trouble in record time. I am the master of double speak. And paranoid conspiracy theories. The game of tete-a-tete is one of my favorites. And being invisible, or in some cases just "unassuming". I have sulking and being shady down to an artform. And if my life ran like an action movie I would be the FUCKING MASTERMIND! Occupation:Student Industry:Entertainment
So, my genius boyfriend shaves off his beard the day before a winter storm. This morning he was complaining a bit about how how much it sucks that his face will be hairless for, like the next twenty-four hours until his beard re-spawns spontaneously. I suggested a scarf. Micah, being the super-studly tough guy that he is, vetoed that idea with not a moment's hesitation. In fact it was so fast that I didn't even have to say the words, "How about a scarf" he just psychically knew and pounded his fist into the wall, causing the floor to buckle a bit. Then I got an idea. See, winter wear is very limited, in that it can only look a certain way before it becomes ineffective, inconvenient, or just makes the wearer look homeless. In this case, there are two, maybe three (only if I count knitting him a new beard out of yarn made from bear-fur, but that's possibly illegal and time-consuming for someone who's only going to need it for a day, tops) ways to properly cover the face of a man: a scarf, or a ski-mask. Ski-mask is out, since my lover could get shot by a well-meaning gas-station clerk who believes himself to be in mortal danger just doling out cigarettes. The only solution is a scarf. But there is no real scarf for men. There's something like this....
But that's for men who shop in boutiques for shoes and talk about their feelings. No real man should ever endure this. My thoughts: there needs to be a real man's scarf. Made from farm-grade heavy duty burlap. Sewn with the entire circulatory system of a fallen moose. Two-inch metal spikes protruding from the material that says "stay the fuck away from me, I'm cold". That would be something men could wear with pride.
My new collection of oddness: Cheap used vintage science fiction novels. Like, the dimestore paperbacks from the 50's and 60's that screamed of experiments gone horribly wrong and aliens abducting people en masse. If I told the people I knew in real life about this, though, it wouldn't be surprising. This speaks volumes more about me than meets the eye. First, I just have a love for the odd. There is no doubt about this. The obscure, offbeat, crazy, just plain fascinates me. Then there's the geek cred thing that I am seriously lacking in, being surrounded by 4channers and gamers galore. I've never felt so behind on things in my life. Dammit, I only have a basic knowledge of comic books, and I'm lucky that I've heard of a few of the universes and superheroes/villains they speak of. Then there's the feminist thing I've been having problems with for a while. Women of my mother's generation were into Harlequin Romance novels. I must admit, I've read a few, and they're not bad. If I could read them without the emotional and uber-helpless feminine thing, they would be great travelogues of the UK. But, alas, they're not. In fact, most of women's literature deals with the emotions and character building than the intellectual aspect of a novel. This pisses me off. If I wanted to deal with my emotions, I wouldn't read a book, I'd just sit and think or write something myself. So collecting science fiction novels seems to me to be the farthest thing from the Harlequins while still being under the formulated paperback cheesy concept. Compromise: write a crazy Harlequin Romance set in the rolling hills of Scotland, where a Russian Spy is en route to London from a failed nuclear test site and strikes a deal with a lonely painter and college professor's daughter, who is headstrong, but secretly shy and has never known the touch of a man. He will give the painter one million dollars if he can take the daughter away to a facility to draw her blood, as her records indicate from some big-worded test that she is immune to all radiation, and it could save his life. In reality the Russian is not really poisoned with radiation, just creepy and watched her swimming and fell in love with her. He wants her to marry him and come live in his big mansion in East Germany. Then all the sheep in Scotland suddenly collapse with a mysterious disease and the spy has to defeat the aliens and finally get the painter's daughter to see the beauty of his soul and make her promise to marry him. She does as they leave Scotland in a huge helicopter headed for Stalingrad.
I've said before that no new art is being made, and that's not entirely true. It's just that for now art above ground is the same post-modernist steel poles in a field of red that is selling to people to put over their couches. Real art is still being made underground, but it's kind of more art with a point, or taking art into its most basic elements and trying to chase something unattainable. I find it very exciting. Here are some examples:
- Energy Art movement: http://www.energyartmovement.org/ tries to boil the energy that comes off of a good painting into it's purest form. Think of it as crack to old art's cocaine. They call it "visual dynamism".
- Conscious Art: http://consciousart.org/Manifesto.html kind of sounds like the stuff my professor Kate was teaching us in Intro to Theatrical Design class. Art for the purposes of knowing that what you're doing is indeed art.
Wow, so what I guess I'm trying to say is that underground art has become pretentious and stuffy again, but only from a socio-political-conscious point of view.
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