To Be Continued And Revised...

As I mentioned in the past two posts, I had an adventure in the city.  Me and Other Dana took a road trip down from Albany to Brooklyn for a Dirty Projectors show at The Music Hall of Williamsburg.  Call me a hipster wannabe, but Williamsburg is one of my favorite places to go in NYC; there is plenty of great graffiti (pictures are coming, but right now I am blogging from my parent's house), indie comic book stores, and of course, vegan restaurants.

 Before heading down, Dana and I decided to make some homemade stickers (Priority Mail Labels are free) to post up around town.  Dana even remade some of the images we'd attempted failed at with spray paint. The graffiti artists here are amazing.  No doubt some of this art is commissioned, or created by the building owners, and though that may be less exciting, it still makes this neighborhood a vibrant, happy place.  Someday I want to upgrade to making stickers like this one.  We took to the train platforms with chalk and Dana drew a great White (Blue?) Rabbit waiting for the train.  As usual, I stuck to words. 

As the concert drew near, we chowed down at Foodswings (the wet dream of any fast-food deprived vegan), and I was thrilled to see that though ownership had changed hands, the bathroom was still graffiti-friendly, so I added my two-cents in.  The concert itself was mind-blowing and possibly spiritual (they do a cover of the Black Flag song, "Spray Paint (The Walls)" ). but it ended much later in the evening than we had intended to leave.  The lines for the merch table were unbelieveable, and add in autographs, and some time spent subtly liberating posters from the walls, and we found ourselves running, hysterical, to the subway.  On the way, were were snapping shots of some great art and I was shouting about how sad it was that the night had to end so soon. 

As we squeezed onto the L, I had a classic OCD moment of doubt. I yelled to Dana, "Get off! It's the wrong train!," and she just managed to pull herself through the closing doors as I realized I was freaking out for no reason.  Still, the great thing about NYC is that there are trains running all the time and another would be there soon, we had fifty minutes to get to Grand Central anyway, and only four stops to traverse.  Twenty minutes later the next L arrived.  It took twenty minutes between each stop.  People were screaming, "what the hell is wrong with this fucking train!?" Several women were crying.  I was crying too, because I was crazy, and now we were stuck in the city.  We arrived at Grand Central twenty mintues after we were supposed to.  After the last train out of the city leaves, the terminal is barricaded off.  So much for sleeping in the plastic arm chairs in Dining Concourse.            

A Little Tale Of L Train Mischief

This weekend there was chalking, stickering, and a little street life.  As the bitter drunk hipster told me, "Do my fingernails look dirty? Damn, I guess I am giving you lots of material for your blog, can't wait for the book next year."

The Capital of Mischief

Other Dana and I are off to NYC, the capital of Mischief, to see the Dirty Projectors (type their name into this website to hear some of their stuff).  My personal favorite is "Rise Above," their cover reinterpretation of Black Flag's original (which was already good).  They lie somewhere between punk, tribal music, and experimental, with just a touch of new-age-y weirdness.  They're creepy and exhilarating; this is music for one thinks up mischief to.

I will have my camera, so I will be sure to take any fun pictures, as we run around Williamsburg, high on vegan junk food from Foodswings (practically an orgasmic experience).  Expect graffiti pictures.  Maybe we should bring chalk.  Holy shit, we're bringing chalk!  Oh, the powers of introspective writing! Well, I gotta go get my red velvet Doc Martens laced (there's thirteen holes, baby!).  

Mischief in Person

Hey everyone,
I am going to be liveblogging on Sunday, November 29th at 6:30ish p.m.  I intend to sit for an hour in Washington Park (or at the Crossgates Mall if the weather is icky).  During that time expect to see me dressed strangely and reporting back on my interactions.  I may even hand out little notes, or whatever the moment inspires me to do.  I will give more information on a specific time as it draws closer. Stay tuned.

A Little Christmas In November

Last night I was feeling up for a blog task, but I had a floor program in my dorm.  I could have skipped out, but this is the first house I've lived in on campus where the girls act as a cohesive group.  There's sharing, sweetness, and plenty of sassy-ness.  Just to give you an idea of what it's like here, the night I went to do graffiti, I was in the kitchen with my partners in crime discussing in very vague terms what was going to go down.  Two of the girls, who I barely knew at the time, walked in.  One of them cut in,"Green paint shows up best, just so you know," and I was flabbergasted.  I love these girls.

I'm going to be moving out soon into a box new apartment, which is kind of ironic considering how much I've grown to like it here.  So I took our holiday decorating party last night as a chance to show the girls a little love and bake them some Vegan Butter Balls, alias: Russian Tea Cakes, alias: Mexican Wedding Cookies, alias: Snowballs.  I baked about three dozen, thinking I would have enough left over for the next task I've been thinking about (you'll see).  The three dozen cookies were gone in about 45 minutes, and the decorating commenced.

Without realizing it, our decorating got a little mischievous. 

I remember going to my aunt's house Christmas Eve and going to the bathroom; there was a santa shower curtain, santa fuzzy toilet seat cover, santa rug, santa (santa-scented?) candle, santa soap dispenser, and santa hand towels.  So cheesy, but as every vegan will admit, cheese tastes so good.  This is in memory of that.  I call it, "Jingle Towels".

G, and M (he may as well be another girl in the house), made a mountain range out of tree trimming beads.  M delicately crafted some tiny mountain inhabitants, and he saw that it was good.  These hill-billies included Vishnu, Skiers, The Abominable Snowman, Jack Skellington.  Every world must have its good and its evil, so there were also sufferers of various climbing disasters, like avalanches, and abyss-falling.  I hate when that happens. 




Back to the bathroom,  I was thinking about the lyrics to "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", when, just like Martin Luther, the monk who founded the Protestant Reformation, I had a tower experience (read the third paragraph, there is poop involved).  Click to enlarge it, then zoom, and see what his hat says on the white trim.  

Another Stranger

Now that I'm back at Mundane Mischief, I've been reflecting about the work I've done so far.  I reread some of my entries to see if I have returned with new perspective, and I have.  The truth is that Only A Real Elf is cowardly.  I am a person that believes in the possibility of the best, but assumes the worst.  The dark changes things, but what changes even more when night falls is that the curtain falls away revealing my hypocrisy.

I look back on my mission statement and I see how in many ways I am not yet a person strong enough to fulfill that endeavor.  I sit on the bus and I look at the people around me, I leave my headphones in my backpack.  I think about that woman in the very front who has the most delicate face, and I think about walking up to her and telling her. I think about that boy hanging off of the bus handle, reading a book so engrossing that he's willing to struggle against gravity and the sudden stops of the bus to continue reading.  I think about asking him what the book is about.  I look at them again and she looks tired, she wouldn't want to talk; he would probably think I was flirting, and he'd be annoyed that I disrupted his studies.  So, I reach into my backpack and I put on my headphones.  Someone asks to sit next to me, and I nod silently.  I do not make eye contact.

I know what must be done and yet I retreat into my shyness, into the dark autumn evenings, into my fear of what others think.  I see these strangers and I look at them with an artist's eye; I sculpt their past, and like Pygmalion, I fall in love.  But I also sculpt their tired, impatient looks, their fear, and their rejection of me. All of the observational powers that make me so curious and empathetic about strangers, are the very things that stop me.  Being a story- teller stops me.  To live Mundane Mischief you must be P'u, you must act as The Uncarved Block. 

It isn't the early sunsets that stop me; had I been doing this in Northern Alaska during June, that entry would have been about some other "obstacle".  This isn't about me facing strangers for their approval of what I believe in; this is about facing myself.  Who is this odd person that yearns for connectedness?

UPDATE: I guess that is what the title, "Learning To Love You More" really means.

To Write Love On Her Arms (a guest blog by Tony G.)

It's like this little message fell into my hands right after I was assigned to work on Dana's blog. The message, "Love <3 write love on her arm - Nov. 13" seemed to mesh itself quite well into the mischievousness that is this blog.

I did my research (don't argue with me, Wikipedia counts as research) and found that this idea is a nationally organized event to support women who suffer from depression, drug addiction, and self injury. It's really neat how the community is so involved in this peculiar exhibit of affection.

What you need to do is take the scribble's advice and write Love on her arm this November 13th. I'll find somebody to tag with my spray paint! I'm probably joking. Depends on whether I have a sharpie sitting around.  

Top 12 Mischevious Quotes

Here are some thoughts to consider as you suffer to create the art that is mundane mischief.  Here are some thoughts to consider when you are 22 years old and you find yourself dressed in corporate casual working as an Office Manager.  Here are some thoughts to consider when you crave to do something big, but find yourself on the internet, again.

Children have a natural antipathy to books - handicraft should be the basis of education. Boys and girls should be taught to use their hands to make something, and they would be less apt to destroy and be mischievous.- Oscar Wilde

I like stirring things up. I'm on the side of the kids more than I am on the adults. And occasionally I find some adults that have that same mischievous streak, so I don't get in too much trouble.-William Joyce

It is better to play than do nothing- Confucius

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.-Plato

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.-Annie Dillard

I am a genius all around. Everything I have made is splendid.-Yayoi Kusama

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.-Buddha

Life is something to do when you can't get to sleep.-Fran Lebowitz

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.-Albert Einstein

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.-Stephen Wright

Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.-Tom Robbins

How strange it is to be anything at all.-Neutral Milk Hotel