Blogging Molly

sunday

2012-01-29T10:38:00.000-08:00

2012-01-15T18:33:00.000-08:00

I have a new story in the inaugural issue of Heavy Feather, alongside some amazing authors. You can purchase the journal here. It's worth it!

Forrest Goes Invisible - "Baby Ghost"

2012-01-13T12:39:00.000-08:00

We'll Be Reading + Singing + Poeming

2012-01-10T07:58:00.000-08:00

2012-01-07T08:22:00.000-08:00

The Kitchen Sisters (aka my mom, Nikki Silva + my godmother Davia Nelson) put together this incredible/moving/bright/cozy/sultry mix to sing in the new year. Thought I'd share. Some have links and others do not...

God is a Battle Axe // Sister Wynona Carr
Klara // Olof Arnalds
I'm In Love // Antony + the Johnsons
The Sun // Han Solo + Gaucho
Sleepwalking Through the Mekong // Dengue Fever
Higher Ground // Stevie Wonder
I Know What I Know // Paul Simon
Son of a Preacher Man // Dusty Springfield
Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin' // Alfred Drake
I Don't Know // Krystle Warren
My Blue Tears // Dolly Parton
Lord Tell Me Why // Ry Cooder
Lilies of the Valley // Jun Miyake
Knots // Lisa Hannigan
This Life // Martha Wainwright
Theme from "The Conversation" // David Shire
Mar Azul // Cesaria Evora
Kiss Me // Tom Waits
Esas No Son Cubanas // Septeto Nacional de Ignacio Piniero
I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl // Nina Simone
What The World Needs Now // Jackie DeShannon

2012-01-06T06:36:00.000-08:00

i just wanted to re-post this because the colors felt good

2011-12-30T06:19:00.001-08:00

2011-12-21T12:06:00.000-08:00

media update from california.

that movie about john lennon's teenage years: good in a good way.

the CD by the guy who plays ukelele at the farmer's market: good in a santa cruz way.

that new charlize theron movie: depressing in a really bad way.

mario brothers wii: looks hard.

2011-12-11T15:20:00.001-08:00

2011-12-07T14:06:00.000-08:00

Are you interested in people? But like, ACTUALLY PEOPLE?? Not those fake kinds of people who date each other because they are both celebrities? Or wear the kind of Tom's with heels? Or eat chopped salads and call their boyfriends and girlfriends "babe"? Are you interested in the kind of nail-biting, life-loving, earnestness that can only be achieved by a kind of transgressive accumulation of the language of those other, frozen-yogurt-loving FAKE people?

You might want to subscribe to ACTUALLY PEOPLE, the superb 8 1/2 X 11 magazine co-edited by my good friends (and ACTUALLY SISTERS) Sarah and Katherine Fontaine. It is the hilarious, stressed out, anti-utopian utopia whose words I live by every month.

Email the editors at actuallypeople@gmail.com. Or walk around in either Portland or San Francisco and you'll run into one of them, I'd guess.

2011-12-04T10:21:00.000-08:00

gonna treat our readers real nice....

2011-12-03T19:58:00.000-08:00

>>>reminder > SO MANY BOATS > a reading under water!
TOMORROW > december 4 > @ 7pm @ THE LEGION in brooklyn > all hands on deck!

<<<< >>>>

2011-12-01T09:40:00.000-08:00

photo by Ryan Molloy.

Click here to read the story!

2011-12-01T06:02:00.000-08:00

2011-11-30T14:30:00.001-08:00

2011-11-30T11:32:00.000-08:00

We came up with a new saying this weekend, which will probably be going viral soon. Just keeping you in the loop.

forrest gump(ing): (v.) the act of wearing one or more running/work-out items in conjunction with one or more non-work-out items (ie a blouse, sweater, pea-coat, or collared shirt). Obviously this is because, like Forrest Gump, the wearer could potentially get up and start running at any time (perhaps they would never stop?!) By definition the wearer must be pairing these items INTENTIONALLY. If the wearer is not aware of what he/she is doing (ie he/she is not doing it for style reasons but out of desire for comfort and/or out of ignorance), it is not considered Gumping. It’s just being from the Midwest.

Gumping in Action:

Martha: Did you see what Asher was wearing to brunch at Roebling?

Madison: Yeah. He was totally Forrest Gumping!

Martha: Yeah. But those Nike Frees looked kinda good with those APC jeans.

Madison: Yeah. Totally.

2011-11-21T19:33:00.000-08:00

tess patalano and i are hosting a reading on december 4th at the legion, in williamsburg. 7pm. great readers, a boat load of booze, and musical stylings by forrest lewinger (of wanda&wonder) please come! bring friends! wear sperrys! sing along! & let your hair be blown back from the helm of your seat.

2011-11-14T08:21:00.001-08:00

This morning I was walking to work when I noticed something so common in New York City that I usually decide not to notice it. What I noticed was an awning over the door of a diner-like restaurant that read: CAPPUCCINOS, YOGURT, CATERING. Those were the three things that this particular restaurant decided to advertise. CAPPUCCINOS, YOGURT, and CATERING.

This kind of urban juxtaposition kills me. It reminds me of those questions on the SAT's where you had to decide which word was out of place amongst three words. Usually one of the words was a verb and the rest were nouns, or else one was an antonym to the other two synonyms. Often two of the words would be types of food and the other would be something totally inedible, like, say, a dishtowel. CAPPUCCINOS, YOGURT, CATERING is one of those puzzles left unanswered. CATERING is decidedly inedible.

But beyond that obvious outlier, what irks me more is the decision to highlight the CAPPUCCINO as either the most available or most appealing coffee drink. First of all, it's just not (more appealing), for the airiness of the foam. And I'm nearly positive this particular restaurant could whip up a latte just as easily (hence, the cappuccino is not particularly more available). But even more importantly, CAPPUCCINO belongs in another list, a list that includes LATTE and MOCHA and CAFE AU LAIT. Why pull the CAPP from the list that suits it, only to flank it with YOGURT and a gerund? It doesn't make any sense.

I won't go into the weirdness of advertising "YOGURT" without preceding it with "FROZEN" or the fact that the Italian plural of CAPPUCCINO is CAPPUCCINI. I will go ahead and say that this instance of signage could be seen as a metaphor for New York City: a place where things that don't go together are crammed in to the same space, and where their lack of connection becomes accepted and expected, and sometimes (although not necessarily in this case) even wonderful.

I Made a Stick

2011-11-13T14:57:00.000-08:00

2011-11-13T14:32:00.000-08:00

In-Progress Word Document

2011-11-08T17:02:00.000-08:00

2011-10-31T07:30:00.000-07:00

three years with forrest today. and so here is e.e. cummings.

since feeling is first

who pays attention

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you

wholly to be a fool

while Spring is in the world

my blood approves

and kisses are a better fate

than wisdom

i swear by all flowers. Don't cry

- the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelid's flutter which says

we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life's not a paragraph

And death I think is no parenthesis.

2011-10-25T11:23:00.000-07:00

I would like to write a short story that looks and feels like this Animal Collective video.

2011-10-25T10:48:00.001-07:00

Ashely Farmer reviews my story "The Grand Canyon Brings People Together" on the >kill author blog here.

2011-10-21T13:32:00.001-07:00

I review B.N. Landry’s story “Free Architecture” for the >kill author blog here.

Guess Who?

2011-10-20T09:27:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Amy Pohler's description of midwesterners on NPR this morning (warm windy broad-shouldered passive agressive), Tess and I try to define people in different parts of the country via adjectives via twitter.

2011-10-17T12:20:00.001-07:00

Look Don't Touch

2011-10-10T10:45:00.000-07:00

My favorite tattoo I have ever seen was on a Swedish guy in Valparaiso, Chile and it just said: LOOK AT THE MOUNTAINS in big block letters. I made this poster about that tattoo. I also made it because I miss looking at the mountains every morning instead of looking at this screen.

yeah.

2011-10-10T07:46:00.001-07:00

from Michael Crowe's rad website.

For Kids, By Kids

2011-10-06T08:37:00.000-07:00

My friend Matthew L. Roher is celebrating the release of his new chapbook "Probability of Dependent Events" (Beard of Bees Press) with a series of readings. I will be reading with Matt and many other amazing kids this Sunday at 7 at Onyx in Greenpoint. The reading will be by kids, for kids, about kids. Come, kids!

Road Trip Love Song

2011-10-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

This song feels like what love feels like.

The Grand Canyon Brings People Together

2011-10-04T21:16:00.000-07:00

So excited to have a story in issue 15 of >kill author. Alongside some of my favorite writers, to boot!

Guess I'm back on the internet again, for better or worse...

Let's Talk Teen Wolf

2011-09-02T07:09:00.000-07:00

New essay up at We Still Like! Check it out for a whole lotta Michael J. Fox and a dose of sexist magazine editor.

See you in a month!

Jesus Plays The Violin

2011-09-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

I am thrilled to have my story "Jesus Plays The Violin" up at Everyday Genius, one of my favorite online magazines. Check it out here!

Off to Blue Mountain

2011-08-31T12:31:00.000-07:00

On Friday morning I leave for the Blue Mountain Center, a writing residency in the Adirondacks, for a month. I am really looking forward to a month in the woods and on the lake, writing all day and having dinner with fifteen other artists in residence.

I will not have my phone, and will have limited access to the internet. If you would like to mail me a letter, I would love you forever.

Send it here:

Blue Mountain Center
c/o Molly Prentiss
P.O. Box 109
Blue Mountain Lake, NY 12812-0109

Wish me luck!

Portrait of a Hurricane

2011-08-28T14:19:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Irene gave us an excuse to stay inside all day, so we watched an Alice Neel documentary and then got the urge to paint portraits. Here is the portrait I painted of Forrest. I think he's cuter in real life.

We Still Like Props

2011-08-25T14:53:00.001-07:00

Litseen reviews the latest issue of We Still Like. Check it out, plus see videos of a few of the readings from the release party here! Congrats Sarah & Chris, the editors, for putting together a stunning issue and a rad reading.

Sabotaged

2011-08-17T10:38:00.000-07:00

The dear Caroline Crew reviews the most recent issue of MudLuscious for Sabotage. Thanks for the shout out, Ms. Crew!

GUEST BLOGGER: Sarah Fontaine

2011-08-16T10:15:00.000-07:00

People who have blogs sometimes have guest bloggers, so I thought I might too. I am proud to have my first guest post written by my dear friend Sarah Fontaine.

I'm sure you have all heard me rave about Sarah, co-editor of Actually People (the best effing magazine of the year, if you ask me), wise soul, magnificent writer, bike rider, canyon-faced plant feeder, and swell collaborator. She is worth the raving, as you will see. Here she brings dispatches from her recent solo bike mission.

Thanks, SF, for partaking in this awkward thing that is called Blogging, for me and whoever reads this.

From The Last Day Of A World Tour

I wake up to birds, early. I start the stove. I pour the coffee. I take my panniers out of my tent and pack them. I eat almond butter and loganberry jelly on a tortilla, instead of hot cereal. I'm out because it's the end of the trip. I put on my bike shorts, sunscreen, chamois butter, the right arrangement of shirts. I mount my bike, which I secretly think of as a pony every time. I love it like a living thing. Coasting by the family I say goodbye. They're getting out of their tent, to get the kids into those trailers to pull them on bikes. I admire them but I do not envy them. I don't envy people. I don't understand it. How can you be anything but you? As me, today, I feel contained, just little me and a little bike and a little stuff balanced on the back and riding home. Today I am riding home.

I go on the hills breathing in more wild fennel and don't take off my layers for a long time even though I am hot, prolonging my stops because every stop delays my arrival home. I try to not be in a hurry. I try to be where I am. I am a little bit wanting to be home. But then I know being home I will not want to be home. I compose text messages to the girl in my head. How I will invite the girl to the beach. How I will invite her to my house. I will not invite her. I don't even want her to come over! All that has happened between us! Look at this bay and love it, I say to myself, and I do. I do impossibly. And then the text message. Just home from my world tour. The line that keeps reappearing. Because the girl would understand exactly that it is funny, but also how much it does feel like an actual tour of the world. I have just toured the world and she is the only one I know who knows what a world tour feels like. The girl has done this trip too, she has seen these things, these trees and these curves and these particular fogs and these specific suns. The girl has seen this. I don't want it to be the girl who has seen this because so much has happened between us, the girl is not the person I am supposed to call when I get home, and I am tired of wanting to tell the girl so many things because only the girl understands them in the particular way the girl does and why do I need to tell the girl specific things just because the girl would understand specifically? There are other people, there are other understandings.

I ride into Tomales and eat two pastries on a bench and talk to the tourists who wonder about me, a girl alone on a bike. I send a few postcards. I ride through Point Reyes Station and try not to hate the weekend spandex riders but hate the weekend spandex riders and I ride some more. I connect roads I haven't before, in home-lands now. I ride up Mt. Tam. It is too long, and I am so tired. It is the hardest road. Usually I never think the roads are that hard. But today, this road is hard. I am hot. But then, gliding down, I hear the grass. I have been waiting to hear that particular grass for twelve days (and for my whole life--that all actions and decisions would lead to hearing more grass in the wind).

And I pull over for a minute so I can hear it, and I hear it, and I cry. Listening to the grass through the cars and I am crying. And then the view of the bay, my bay, and I am on my way now. I am on my way down, down, down, to Sausalito, to the bridge, the terrible wind and tourists of the bridge, but even in hating it I love it today. And a woman in a white onesie on a white bike stops with me up high on Mt. Tam at a stop sign and hollers for me, a smoker's voice holler, for the grandness of my journey, and the same woman stops at the end of the bridge to give me a high five which does not make me weep but makes me very warm.

I run into my best friend and my best friend's boyfriend on top of a hill by Baker Beach and I am happy to remember I have friends and I don't know what to say. I wasn't planning on saying anything. I don't really want to say anything for a long time still. But we exchange pleasantries and the boyfriend asks about the hills and miles and things I don't care about (I did this bike trip for the aesthetics of sensations only) and I ride home. Through the park, where there is a massive concert occurring and it is too much and too big. Actually it is too small, too many people in a place with so many trees and so much grass that they aren't listening to. People not listening to the grass or the trees when there is so much: this is very sad.

And then I am home. I ride up to my home and take out my keys and unlock my door to my amazing specific room and bring my panniers in sadly and bring my bike in sadly and sit on the floor for a long time. And then I take a shower sadly and sit some more. Put lotion on. These things feel good. Good and sad and particular.

I walk down to the beach and meet the girl.

Me and this girl walk. Not knowing where we are going. Just a walk, alongside this particular and specific girl. We say the names of places to each other from the bike trip. We say the feelings of the bike trip too. There is a lot of light, and there is a hill and suddenly we discover a castle. (We really do.) This castle has been here, waiting for us. We sit on top of this castle with our feet swinging and the little beach and people below us and discuss loneliness. In the particular and specific way we do.

We say: The sadness of seeing things alone.

We say: The need for seeing things alone.

We walk more, now on Geary street. We find hot chocolate and drink that. We find a bar with a fire place that looks like a big ash tray that the girls who are bartending switch on for us because we are cold from our walk and both in shorts. They wear jeans with complicated stitching and appliques and complicated eye make up but they don't seem complicated. They seem simple and happy and we get to be that way too with them, with the music they play. Simple and happy. Everything around us feels here for us to be finding. There are so many things on this street for us to find! And so we do our job together and find these findable things! We talk over the music here and we listen to the music. Here I watch the girl's face and wonder about it. About why this music-sharing and fire-sharing and talk-sharing feels nourishing in a particular and specific and therefore singular way. To see the girl's particular face and hear the girl say specific things and have the girl understand. (A note on the girl's particular face: I stared at a mule deer in a Utah canyon one summer evening. It was surprised by me but then it just stood there, stopped, trying to comprehend, trying to take me in. It was so still. That is what her face is like.) Also how it has been a long time months since we have talked and I keep getting confused about all the things we don't know about each other because I am always telling her things even when in silence and distance.

We find everything fascinating. The appearance of the normal things are not normal, but fascinating and there for us to find. We find a place to eat papaya salad. We drink beer out of chilled vases because the restaurant has run out of other things to drink out of because of all the people from the massive sad concert. This makes us laugh. A lot of easy very small particular things make us laugh. We walk back far from where we came and then we run some through the park and we find a lot of particular chinese lanterns hanging in the trees and then we keep running specifically.

Daily Dose

2011-08-15T11:10:00.001-07:00

Thanks to David Backer for mentioning my poem on FictionDaily!

LMCC Readings

2011-08-15T10:47:00.000-07:00

Just realized you can listen to the LMCC writers read their work on the webiste. Click above to listen to the audio recordings of our open studios reading!

The California Shopping List

2011-08-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

Two, Two

2011-08-05T15:43:00.000-07:00

I'm in double trouble with the twins - they've gone Siamese again. By way of double bubble they've togethered themselves, literally stuck together, hair of Twin A and hair of Twin B braided and laced with pink. I've got to unstick them before the clock strikes Cinderella and their bladders leak into their plastic shoes. The problem is, the twins don't want to come undone.

The twins gallop twice as fast when connected. They laugh twice as hard. Twin A does the explaining ("It was both our faults, equally!") and Twin B does the shimmering (She's rubbed her face on Twin A's sparkle leotard.) I'm all up in between them with a face that means scissors: How did this happen, Twin A and Twin B?!

Identical giggles from the Siamese. Identical belly bulges. While I'm in the kitchen digging for the shears they're in the pantry, rubbing ears. Twin A you are so beautiful. No you are, Twin B!

What's going on here, I parent, but pretend.

We're doing a thing, they say as they collide their craniums.

I love Twin B more than Twin A but is that wrong, to say that?

What kind of a thing, I say.

A thing where we don't want you to cut us apart, says Twin B.

I stand, scissor-handed, looming. I watch as Twin A conducts the Thing. She tells Twin B: Don't move, stay right there, yeah right there...and she slowly climbs her feet up the pantry wall, knocking a few spices, her head still up against Twin B's head, pressing hard, so that soon Twin A is atop Twin B like a straight pole, she's upside down in a headstand position, balancing, and the twins are grinning, Twin A is squealing, the whole place smells like the cinnamon she kicked over and I'm surprised: I don't want them to come unstuck anymore, I'm content right here, watching my twins connect.

Let's Live Like This

2011-07-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

Almost Time for Almost

2011-07-27T12:21:00.000-07:00

It's almost time for Almost, the latest in-print issue of We Still Like, featuring two pieces by yours truly! There will be a release party in SF on August 11th - info below:

We invite you to get ready to like the hell out of our third issue at our raucous release party celebrating the publication of We Still Like ALMOST. Join us as we raise a glass to everything ALMOST — all those nice-tries and pipe dreams, anything ephemeral and phantom and imperfect. Our featured readers will be spilling almost everything (except their drinks) as they entertain us with tales of faulty memory and mix tapes, Sapphic poetry and exes revisited. Our readers will hit the stage at scheduled intervals, leaving guests time in between readings to explore the area's hidden treasures, like small-batch wine, handmade ice cream, custom-built messenger bags and thin-crust pizza. And to browse your brand-new copy of We Still Like, of course! No ordinary reading, the We Still Like release party is a party-within-a-party, as we join forces with The Bold Italic's 3rd Base: A DogPatch Microhood block party to show off SF's unsung Dogpatch neighborhood. Copies of We Still Like ALMOST will be available for purchase for $12 at the event.

Who: Hosted by Sarah Ciston and Chris Pedler, editors and co-creators of We Still Like. Held in conjunction with and supported by The Bold Italic's 3rd Base: A DogPatch Microhood event.

When: Thursday, August 11 at 6:00 to 8:00 PM

Where: Rickshaw Bagworks, 904 22nd Street, San Francisco

Price: Free!

RSVP/Contact: Sarah@WeStillLike.com

Happy Birthday Happy Baby

2011-07-25T10:05:00.001-07:00

My sister Kate just had a beautiful baby girl on July 23 at 3:47am. (No name yet.) I am so excited to meet her and kiss her and so proud to be her aunt. Love you, Sissy & Matt & Baby!

Let's Go

2011-07-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

Experimental Blogging...

2011-07-18T15:54:00.000-07:00

Here's my most recent column for WSL:NYC. Click above to read more at We Still Like!

Little Jim Laughing

2011-07-14T13:01:00.000-07:00

Little Jim can tickle himself. He can put his hands into his armpits and scrunch them to make himself laugh. This is Little Jim's best quality. Making himself laugh since he was born.

Little Jim was born in 1995. This makes him old enough to know that he should not be making himself laugh in public. Where he used to tickle himself anywhere and everywhere, now he only does it in private, with the lights off in his fish-blue room.

In 1995 Little Jim's mother was as big as a barn. She was full of Little Jim. When she gave birth to him she was screaming, and when he came out laughing she was screaming still.

Little Jim laughed for his whole life. Until recently, when he stopped.

Little Jim Walking

2011-07-13T14:40:00.000-07:00

A cactus burns a silhouette into the burning sky. Little Jim going for a foot-burning walk out behind the property. Little Jim only seven or ten years old. Blonde as the sand, skin as orange as the sky. Little Jim: the same colors as the Texas landscape, out near the border fence at the wrong time of night.

Little Jim remembers what Big Jim told him once: Never go all the way to the border fence. Big Jim in his big voice, demanding so much. Little Jim wasn't a rebel. Simply liked the sunset so much that he wanted to follow it. Big Jim's eyebrows would come down on him like a hammer if he saw where Little Jim was right now. Saying: Told you never go out there!

At the border fence there is a dark pile of something. Little Jim is being careful and he feels warm, even with the evening breeze. The dark pile is right at the edge of the border fence, and as Little Jim approaches it he sees that it is not moving. The dark pile is a man, and Little Jim looks him directly in his black eyes. The man is caught in the border fence, his leg ripped up from the wire. His chest is also ripped up.

Little Jim stands, not knowing what to do. At first he thinks to run away, but then he remembers how his mother would never leave anyone alone. He goes to the man, who is being quiet as he bleeds and hurts. Little Jim crouches above him. Little Jim rests a hand on his chest until the chest stops beating. Little Jim closes the man's open eyes and puts his own hat over his face to shield it from the sun that will rise hot and angry in the morning.

Think That Snow Is Falling

2011-07-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

From Yoko Ono's "Snow Piece," because I saw her in PS1 last week and she smiled at me.

Actually Reclaiming Happiness

2011-07-01T07:29:00.000-07:00

Proud to be a part of the latest issue of Actually People, edited by the excellent Katherine & Sarah Fontaine. Here's my article.

Reclaiming Happiness

I must admit that as a former resident of California and a current resident of Brooklyn, New York, I was (and continue to be) nervous (in a very specific nostalgia-oriented way) about writing a column under the heading “Reclaiming Happiness”. This particular nervousness arises in a variety of settings, including Corporate Interviews Where You Wear “Button Up Shirts”, Phone Calls With People In Different Time Zones Who Are Not On The Same “Wavelength” Simply Because It Is Still Light There And It Is Not Still Light Here, “Meeting Up For Drinks” With People You Have Crushes On But Can’t Touch Their Hand Gently Because You Are “In A Relationship”, and Being In A Taxi Cab In A “Foreign” City And Not Knowing If You’ll Get “Screwed” On The Fare. These things are nerve racking because they make you admit things to yourself. They make you admit that you are maybe not the person you thought you were/you are maybe not living the life you thought you were living/you have a deep ache inside of your soul for general reasons/ you may need to make a “Life Change”. I was nervous to write Reclaiming Happiness because I would need to delve into the act of measuring my happiness, to perhaps admit that I had lost much of it along the way, that happiness was not a thing that one could be but that one could have, could lose, and would at points need to reclaim.

In doing this I would need to admit things like There Are No Trees In Brooklyn. (I would need to mention, in my defense, that there is one tree, which I have trained to grow through my bedroom window in order to photosynthesize alongside it/be able to breathe at all.) I would need to go ahead and admit that There Are No Real Thrift Stores Here Because They Are All “Vintage” Instead. I would need to say that There Are Rats That Mate On The Subway Tracks and that Waves Don’t Crash But Cars Do and that Crickets Cannot Be Heard and Stars Cannot Be Seen. I would then need to go farther and admit that Everyone Smokes Cigarettes Here and I Kind Of Like The Smell, and then even farther by admitting that I Have An Alcoholic Beverage Mostly Every Night Even On Mondays Even On Sundays. I’d push on to say that The Subway Smells Bad and Sometimes Brooklyn Makes You Feel Like You Need More Tattoos and The Stairwell Smells Bad and Sometimes Brooklyn Makes You Feel Like You Don’t Exist and The Bodegas Smell Bad and Sometimes Brooklyn Makes You Feel Like The Trash On The Side of The Street That Doesn’t Get Cleaned Up and In The Summer Everyone Smells Bad and Sometimes Brooklyn Makes You Feel Like Everyone Is Three Thousand Miles Away. These things are hard to say out loud, Actually People, and I resent the fact that I am saying them at all, but the first step to Reclaiming Happiness is admitting you have a problem, and so here I am, admitting the shit out of this shit.

I guess it’s time for the Reclaiming Part. During the Reclaiming Part I should disclose the things I am doing in order to Make This Work, the things I am doing in order to Get Happiness Back, the things I am doing to Love Life. The problem is that the Reclaiming Part might appear to be boring to the average Actually People reader, because of the very average locations and ways in which it occurs, which are streets, tunnels, walkways, restaurants, and parks. These open public domains are where the most Happiness Inducing things occur, things that make one Believe in "Living" Again, things that make one "Fall In Love" With New York Again, things that make one Stop "Holding One’s Breath" Again. Things like Old Man Who Looks Like Your Grandfather Playing Accordion (give him a dollar every time), The Perfect Cappucino (Abrazo), Breakfast at The Counter (Sunday paper), Fire Escapes (life escapes), Thunderstorm in SoHo (wet bandana), Best Conversations You’ve Ever Had With Strangers (they’ve read that book, too), Wood Paneled Walls (70’s), Pork Belly (with sauce), Rose And Oyster Combinations (happy hour), Emotional Moments In The Public Library (the ceilings!), First Snow (magic), That Place On Manhattan Avenue With The Piano Player (Hey Jude), Lipstick (blaze apricot), walking in the rain (June), walking in the heat (forever), walking in the snow (magic), walking in the haze (depression), walking in the now (always), walking in the new (now). The thing about Brooklyn is that you never know when you are reclaiming yourself, but slowly, always, while walking, you are.

You are gathering happiness as if it had wings, you are in the middle of a constant parade, you are basically made of confetti, you are hip and you are young and you are walking. You are walking and gathering and amassing your happiness, you are walking and reclaiming and living, you are desperate and you are young and you want things so badly that it hurts your actual physical body even the organs even the joints. You are holding the biggest net you have the biggest mouth you have a whale mouth you have baleen and you are catching all the krill of happiness you are lighting every match of happiness you are finding every wing of happiness and flapping it, treading on it, smashing it between your teeth, until it is dirty or you’ve lost it or it’s gone, when it’s time to admit that you are without it again, you must find it, that it needs to be reclaimed.

Puddle Wonderful

2011-06-30T08:29:00.000-07:00

Just got a piece published in the rad, delicious, puddle wonderful journal Mud Luscious, among some amazing writers. Click on issue 16. Enjoy!

Love Letter

2011-06-29T09:36:00.000-07:00

The lovely Jessica Chrastil made a postcard out of one of my little stories. She prefaced it with "I want to make this into a postcard and send it to myself." Amazing.

Radical & Beautiful

2011-06-28T09:39:00.000-07:00

Here is my friend and conspirator D.W. Lichtenberg reading from our collaborative book project, We Are So Beautiful To Us. Can you guess which poems are mine and which are his?

BALTIMORE

2011-06-27T09:38:00.000-07:00

Someone bites a chicken wing and we're talking about Ranciere. They've poured our gin and sodas in the wrong kind of glasses but we're okay with that, as long as it stays this time of day forever. What about Montessori educations? Joe asks. What about the body with no orifices? That French theory shit is shit, he's saying before we have time to answer. His mustache is smothered in sauce.

Earlier we swam in a quarry and our hair is tangled in the way that only water can do. We also looked at art, saying to each other: Remember when we used to make things? Someone had made a sculpture from stuffed animal bunny rabbits. It made us nauseous, so we left.

Across the table Zoe and Lindsey are getting into a deep conversation. About what, we can't hear. The Montessori model is all about prepared environments. You give the kids an environment and see what they do with it, see how they play.

Zoe says, I've been working a lot with clouds.

I'm thinking, Aren't we all.

We Still Like "Columnists"

2011-06-23T07:49:00.000-07:00

I just started blogging over at the awesome, radical, newly digital literary hotspot We Still Like. My column is called WSL:NYC (We Still Like: New York City). Check out my first post, where I talk shit about making money, here.

Friday Night Lights

2011-06-22T07:14:00.000-07:00

I am reading this Friday in Bayridge. I'll be reading all new work. More details and bios of the other readers here.

Be There or Be Square

2011-06-21T07:55:00.000-07:00

NYC folks: come to Forrest's show tomorrow night!

Poster by the beautiful Ainslee McAndrew.

Shorty Swing My Way

2011-06-20T12:37:00.000-07:00

(new story)

Shorty was called Shorty because she was short. So short, in fact, that she couldn't sit on a bar stool. So short that she had to wear jeans made for kids. Her jeans had rhinestones around the pockets. She had black flats covered in black glitter. They were kids size thirteen.

Janice got on the train with Shorty. They were going to a show in the Lower East Side. It was a band Shorty had loved as a teenager, and now they were back, on some sort of reunion tour. Shorty had just recently shaved the side of her head. Not the whole head, just the side, which made her feel good, sort of punk rock. She had tattoos all over her arms and back. Her fingers were smaller than kids fingers, but she had those tattooed, too. One set of fingers said LOVE when she made a fist. The other said FUCK.

Janice treated Shorty just like anyone else, which was why they were best friends and did everything together. When the kid on the bench across from her stared at her because of how short she was and probably how ugly, Janice just kept talking, looking directly into Shorty's eyes and talking and talking about her boyfriend Dicky and what a dick he was about that whole Tanya thing.

At the show, Shorty had to stand on a table to see the stage. She was used to this, or else sitting on someone's shoulders. The boys often offered to put her on their shoulders, and it felt good when their necks rubbed between her legs, like a pleasant electric shock. The band was old now and not how Shorty remembered them. They were quieter and less fierce. Someone called her a midget and someone else spilled their drink on the part of her head that had just been shaved. She was not having a good time until she found Janice, who grabbed her hand and pulled her to the front of the crowd.

Janice had bangs that were died primary color red and looked like a toilet paper roll. Shorty, Janice said over the noise of the stupid band. You look hot tonight. Shorty smiled because Janice wasn't the kind of person who would just say something like that for the hell of it, she would say it because it was true. She felt the urge to get on stage with the band and dance.

Ale-Ale-Jandro

2011-06-16T08:29:00.000-07:00

Alejandro Zambra and I are going to make babies out of our words.

The babies will have bonsai trees for heads, and prosthetic arms.

They will be shorter than average.

People won't hang out with them until they hit puberty, when they will become popular and well-read.

Alejandro and I will share custody. I will have the kids during the mornings, Alejandro will take them at night.

They will grow up and mature as we grow up and mature.

At the same time they are maturing they are also growing younger, smoother, and more vibrant.

Hair Dos & Don'ts

2011-06-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

HAIR DOs

Do style my hair into a moose. Do style it into any animal of your choosing. Do touch my hair anytime, do take it in your hands. Tie my hair into your noose. Climb up it. Rapunzel the shit out of it. Do style my hair into a symbol. Do braid it into your personal exclamation point. Curl it out. Flip it. Flip out on it. Take my hair into your hands. Style it into a stethoscope. Put it up to your chest and breathe.

HAIR DON'Ts

Don't let my hair get flat or limp. You can make sure this doesn't happen by keeping your knuckles close to my skull, by lifting at the roots. You can make sure this doesn't happen by keeping your fingertips rubbing at the base of my hair and staying close enough to smell the grease.

Depression Session

2011-06-13T08:02:00.000-07:00

Below is a conversation with Miss Sarah Fontaine, my wonderful friend, co-conspiritor in factorycompany, and editor in chief of the fantastic magazine Actually People.

*amendment: I was recently informed by Miss Katherine Fontaine that Sarah is no longer editor-in-chief of APM. See below for details.

"As I am sure you are aware, Sarah Fontaine, is not the Editor-in-Chief.

She was at one time the Co-Editor in chief, but recently due to being extremely hung over on publishing day (see interview with Constance Hockaday in April/May 2011 issue to better understand the quality of her work while in this state) she was demoted to Assistant Editor-in-Chief."

s: so i was thinking we could make a list of things that are depressing

things that are not depressing

and things that are sometimes depressing

me: SO into it

im gonna start now

10:30 AM s: Things That Are Depressing:

microwaves

I meant Things That Are Always Depressing

my stepdad

me: carpet

s: plastic bags

me: Four Loco

s: SUVs

what's that?

10:31 AM me: hahah

its an energy drink alcohol drink

s: energy drinks are ALWAYS depressing

me: stained glass

10:32 AM me: PC's

s: music association-memories with really good music that you had amazing sex to that now you can't listen to anymore

YES!

I LOVE THE WAY YOU THINK

me: i love the way you think :)

s: facebook

me: when people dont think the way we think

s: when people don't get jokes

me: elevators

s: keens

me: HAHAHA

velour

hair gel

s: yes, although sometimes it can be funny

yes, but i've been thinking i want to pomade my hair and make it like 50s boy style lately

so don't judge me if i do that

me: playgrounds with no grass

s: fox news

s: girls in high heels and dresses without a jacket waiting outside of a club freezing trying to look hot

me: the sound of a TV

s: the reflection glow of tv on people's faces

s: someone on another coast is depressing

me: its true

s: throwing away vegetables because they went bad in your fridge

10:36 AM because you weren't there to cook them

me: San Jose

s:union square

me: Forever 21

s: new shoes

10:37 AM not always, but especially when they're perfectly clean

although i have some new clarkes right now and i don't think they're depressing

s: Things That Are Not Depressing

me: professional interviews

wait that was for depressing

s: the scarves my gramma just gave me

10:38 AM depressing: professional anything

depressing: being a tourist

me: COFFEE

(not depressing)

s: yes

cream in the coffee

me: coffee with you

s: yes

record players

me: so much cream in the coffee with you

s: yes

depressing: how lighting candles feels cheesy

me: bodies of water (not depressing)

s: but they're really awesome

yeS!

10:39 AM bottled water: depressing

me: YES

s: i'll like these lists to be vertical, so the bodies of water and bottled water can be right next to each other

and it can be a venn diagram

with the sometimes in the middle

like new shoes, maybe

overhead lights are depressing

10:40 AM

s: how cheap you can get semi-good stuff at ikea is depressing

s: how no one reads literary journals is depressing

how target is selling food now

s: the moment when you realize you don't want to have sex with your boyfriend all the time anymore

10:41 AM or your girlfriend

me: sunglasses=not depressing

me: the shortest shorts in the world

not depressing

10:42 AM how writing can be like making out

not depressing

meadows=not depressing

s: voice mail messages from people you love are depressing because you know you won't call them back enough or in time or whatever and you don't even want to talk on the phone but you know you want to talk to them

yes meadows!

me: blogging = depressing

me: (even though it is my life)

s: yes, blogs!

10:43 AM

me: supermarkets = depressig

s: costco

depressing

me: Costco Pizza

s: buying things in that big of quantities

me: people that go on cruises

s: yes costco pizza most of all

cruises are SO DEPRESSINg

luxury is depressing

10:44 AM malibu 30000$ cars depressing

me: studartesses

s: the way people talk to studartesses

me: curling irons

s: curlers

me: zoos are depressing

10:45 AM rainbow sherbert is both depressing and not depressing

s: yes to that

me: Things That Are Both Depressing And Not Depressing

s: how hot ciara is in that video ride it with ludacris could be in the middle column depending on the day

me: 5am

s: yes!

4pm

me: YES!

10:46 AM s: exboyfriends

me: fog

s: being hung over

me: having a boyfriend

s: being single

weddings

me: hahah

god yes!

s: being a bridesmaid

me: being lazy

s: which i am too much this summer

yes

10:47 AM me: talking on the phone

s: techno music

maybe that's always depressing

me: farawayness

s: yeah horizon lines

me: being alone

s: birthdays/getting older

10:48 AM family

me: eating shitty food from gas stations on road trips

s: yes

road trips

me: the color beige

s: oh that's almost always depressing

me: (i have beige fingernails right now)

haha

s: oh wait that's NOT depressing

that's amazing, like the hair gel thing

10:49 AM depressing: the number of stair cases in my parent's house: 2

me: breaking your phone

s: swimming pools

me: those floaty things in pools

10:50 AM

me: market street

poetry readings

10:51 AM

me: the internet

s: yes! people winning literary awards

me: yogurt parfaits

s: oatmeal

me: canteloupe

s: iceberg lettuce

me: when people cut up canteloupe for parties

s: yes!

10:53 AM

me: YOU ARE NEVER DEPRESSING

Summer Continues...

2011-06-12T17:05:00.000-07:00

JUNE 10: Molly

The neurologist is French. The women who work in his office are French. His hair is French, his politics are French, and the electric shocks he sends through people's nerves are very, very French. Everything is French it seems, save the girl, who sits on the doctor's cot uncomfortably, a wounded and embarrassed American, wearing a saltine-colored gown and worrying about what is beneath it.

Someone has painted the French office like a Florida seashell: pale pinks and lazy lilacs. Yellowed air conditioning units and sinks with no water in them. The blinds are the kind from old people's houses or offices, long slats that salute and then march forward like an army of shade, keeping the light from the East River out of the girl's eyes. The girl lays there and lets the neurologist insert long needles into her flesh. She watches small moments of blood happen on her arms and legs.

You are braver than most, says the neurologist, basking in his Frenchness, relying on it as a way to make her feel good. For a moment, it does. She wipes her face. She tells him Thank you. She tells him Thank you for telling me I am braver than most. She tells him Thank you for being the first person who has been below my skin in a long, long time.

JUNE 10: Jessica

Levi says if I love God I will learn to love myself.

I already love myself, like, a lot, I say, or sometimes anyway, and he says, If you’re truly able to love yourself then you love God as well.

Levi, I say, what do I have to do with God?

He’s busy fingering the rosary he brought back from his most recent pilgrimage to Africa, it radiates whiffs of street fried patchouli, the silky red tassles sweep against the back of his hand and he hums.

Do you still have the rosary I brought you? he asks. That was a very special one, given to me by a sick monk in Swaziland.

Of course, I say, its hanging near my mirror at home, I see it every time I pluck my eyebrows. And I think of you.

Aw, he says. You should think of God. Think of God and I loving you together.

Do you love me? I ask, Cause I remember when I used to love you, you couldn’t stop talking about that Catholic girl in your seminary class who always wore a nun’s habit. Virginia or something. Was she even a nun?

Victoria, he says, her name was Victoria. And, no, she wasn’t a nun, she just utilized all paths to seek guidance from the Lord. But I’ve always loved you. I just needed time to recover from my sordid past. I was seeking reform in the form of Victoria.

It might be too late to love me now, I say. You might have missed your chance.

He fingers his rosary. There is always the path of forgiveness, he says reproachfully, and besides, we’d have some damn hot kids darling.

And he smacks me on the ass.

Tender Moments

2011-06-09T09:57:00.000-07:00

If you were in a park in the middle of Manhattan under a canopy of trees drinking gin and soda with your best friend and your other friend strolled up in a white onesie with THIS copy of Tender Buttons in her straw shoulder bag and you opened it and it almost fell apart in your hands and you saw THIS sentence out of the corner of your eye [certainly glittering is handsome and convincing ] wouldn't you think either: I have good friends, or This is the life, or Who wants another round?

The End Of The World

2011-06-07T12:02:00.000-07:00

JESSICA'S JUNE 3RD

2011-06-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

Jessica's first day of the summer book.

Alan says, when it was this hot back in 1953 all anyone could do was lay in bed and cry, think about ice.

In this heat I want to be draped in wet white cottons, be on that bright green farm in Virginia where disabled weavers weave silk colored blankets.

They’re on the spectrum, Olivia says.

On the weekends the weavers play banjos, pick strawberries from strawberry patches, I’m draped in wet white cottons, dancing to their music, eating their fruit, living with them on the spectrum. We all get draped in wet white cottons, the heat stays outside us, we feed each other strawberries, eat some cream pie, take turns on the banjo. The guy named Merle bangs the heels of his hands on the empty pie pans, we all want to play the drums and he says, you can play when I’m finished. No one wants to wait for him to finish. We lay on the grass in wet white cottons and wait for heat to eat us alive. We'll have to become the heat, someone says, cant beat it join it, so we strip off our wet white cottons and relax into heat. We become muggy, we melt, our lines get fuzzy, heads are humid, we disappear one by one until only Merle's left banging pie pans and by evening Merle's melted heat too.

I Stay Warm

2011-06-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

Music from Wanda & Wonder, video from Carmen Winant, whose arrival is very much anticipated on the East Coast.

THE SUMMER BOOK

2011-06-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

My friend Jessica Chrastil and I want to make a Summer Book. Here is my first day of summer.

JUNE 3

Last night a friend told me I needed to jump in in the ocean.

You need to jump in the fucking ocean, my friend said, the beer rising up into her face.

I need to jump in the fucking ocean, it’s true, but how could she tell?

It’s about to be summer and we’re about to go bananas.

I love the phrase go bananas almost as much as I love to go bananas.

I love to go yellow, curved, sliding, sticking, peeling, bruised, bitten, soft, some green...

Which is to say I love to go summer.

Summer is my best quality.

Before I go I need to say that I’m getting prepared.

I am trying to love things a little bit less, in preparation for summer.

I am trying to look up at the sky more.

I am trying to sweat as much as possible, so that when it gets really hot,

so hot that we can’t wear any clothes, I will be prepared,

for all the nakedness, all the empty glasses, and all the smells.

Forever

2011-05-31T12:06:00.001-07:00

Dad Draws For My New Project

2011-05-30T11:50:00.001-07:00

These are my dad's illustrations for the first story in a new collection I am working on. This story is titled BEING QUIET WITH LOUISE. For more of my dad's work visit charlesprentiss.com.

FRENCH KISS FROM LITTLE LOUIE

2011-05-25T11:13:00.000-07:00

(new story)

Tonight we're going dancing. We're going to a club that plays something called Dubstep. AC told me about Dubstep, he tells me about everything, he tells me about all kinds of music, including drum and bass, electro, and soul music for monday nights while he cooks me dinner. He knows which music is for which occasion and he knows that tonight we need Dubstep. We are at the club and the Dubstep is happening. A DJ with one hand on one ear is playing Dubstep and we are already dancing even though we haven't even gotten on the floor yet. We haven't gotten our drinks yet, now we're getting our drinks, I get a vodka soda because of the calories, AC gets a vodka Red Bull because of the mood he's in, and our shoulders are moving a little bit, and we know they are about to start moving all the way.

THIS IS FRENCH KISS FROM LITTLE LOUIE, AC shouts down the bar, into my ear. ITS AN OLDER TRACK. THE BRITS LOVE HIM. KIDS HERE DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT'S UP. I am feeling good and AC's voice telling me what song it is makes me feel good, like I know what's up, like I know this music and have known it for a long time, like I own it. AC makes his own music that sounds like this music and he makes it all night, while I am trying to sleep. The only thing is, I am not really trying to sleep because what I am trying to do is hear AC's music through the wall that separates our bedrooms and through the headphones that separate his ears from the air in the room. THIS SONG IS MORE ACADEMIC, AC says loudly, sipping from his small glass as the track changes into something more thumping, more smooth. ACADEMIC DUBSTEP, he says. I look up at him. I start moving my hips.

ONE OF THE ORIGINAL GODFATHERS OF HOUSE MUSIC, AC is saying, and at the same time a guy with narrow jeans and an ambiguous haircut is placing a yellow pill in my hand, which is clammy. I hold onto his finger when he places it in my palm. I squeeze it. The pill feels wet and hot, it feels like the yellow will be smudged on my palm, like the color of a melting M&M. Tonight we're going dancing, I am saying to myself. Tonight we're going dancing. I imagine AC's voice saying it, his big hands on my shoulders, he's looking straight into my eyes. THUNDER CAT, he is saying. THUNDER CAT! I am doing two things at once. I am listening and swallowing. I am also grabbing backwards, grabbing for the guy who gave me the pill, but he is gone, lost into the crowd where he came from. My vodka soda tastes like my mood does: bright and toxic. The song that is playing now says: WE ARE GOING TO UTOPIA AND NEVER COMING BACK. It is saying YOU AND ME WILL ALWAYS BE HUMAN BEINGS. AC is saying: WE NEED TO MOVE TO LONDON, SUZIE. WE NEED TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.

On the dance floor: bodies are moving in ways I've never seen. Arms are monkey's arms, hips are snakes, legs are tribes in Africa. THIS IS REAL DUB, AC says, and then he starts going wild. I love it when AC goes wild: he is all over the place, jumping, throwing one of his fists in the air with the beat, hitting the ground with his palms, spinning on his toes. His floppy hair spins with him, doing its own dance. I get the feeling, too, and I put my fist in the air like AC's. I do what he does, I spin and freak out. The vodka is making me feel wild and calm at the same time. Dub Step is beating inside of me, and AC is starting to sweat. The pill is beginning to work, I can feel its yellow electricity starting to move through my blood. While I am dancing I am thinking about nothing, which is the most refreshing thing to think about.

The next song is Caribbean or something and it sounds like we are on the islands. I feel like I am on an island, just me and AC on a little strip of sand in a green sea. AC is saying something about RECORDING THIS TRACK IN TWO DAYS and I am about to go swimming. I am about to dive into some teal aqua marine sparkle water in a bikini, my first bikini, the first time I can feel the sun and the water on my stomach, the first time there is anything to cover up on top, the first time AC makes fun of me about growing up, saying the word PUBERTY for days and days, over and over again, PUBERTY in the hotel room with the plumerias in a ceramic jar, PUBERTY in the restaurants with the fountain sodas, PUBERTY on the sand on our towels. I hate that word PUBERTY and I tell him to stop, which just makes him keep saying it, more and more, PUBERTY more and more. Finally, once we are in the water so he won't be able to tell that my face is wet, I cry, my salty tears mixing with the ocean water, and I cry because I don't want puberty, I don't want to ever stop swimming, I don't want to stay in a different hotel room than mom and dad, because soon one of them will be gone, soon one of them won't belong to us anymore, soon we won't ever be able to crawl in their bed, soon we will be too big, me and AC with bare feet, crawling in at the foot of the bed, smelling their naked bodies, getting sand on the sheets.

AC takes my hand and spins me around. He's talking to me, telling me about this song, saying SUZIE, YOU'LL LOVE THIS ONE, DOESN'T THIS ONE FEEL LIKE THERE IS WATER RUMBLING UNDERNEATH IT, DO YOU HEAR THAT BASS? I am spinning, swimming, deep in my blue, and the song is saying I'M COMIN HOME I'M COMIN HOME.

SS//SO GOOD

2011-05-23T14:45:00.000-07:00

ESS ESS. Melissa & Kate's amazing venture. Keep up with events here.

Let's Live A Long Long Long Time

2011-05-21T12:57:00.001-07:00

Wanda and Wonder - Live a Long Time from Forrest Lewinger on Vimeo.

F's newest bestest video.

THE VHS MOVIE OF OUR LIVES

2011-05-19T18:18:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the VHS movie of our lives is in fast forward sometimes the VHS movie of our lives gets all tangled up and you have to put your pointer finger in the little hole and twist sometimes the VHS movie of our lives feels like the best oldest heaviest promise sometimes the VHS movie of our lives is too high pitched. We want the VHS movie of our lives to include each other, or at least two actors who resemble us, in a field of dry grass, looking up at the sky in slow motion, and the picture will have a grainy quality, the kind of quality we like in a person, the kind of quality we like in a life.

Section from a section of "We Are So Beautiful To Us", a new/old project.

Mixin' It Up

2011-05-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

Check out Junior's new site, Super Legit, featuring "every mix he makes for an entire year". Cool.

Last Call

2011-05-03T08:44:00.000-07:00

Join us in the studios of LMCC’s Workspace artists and writers-in-residence for an opening reception, open hours, and a reading! Representing all media and genres—from painting and sculpture to installation, photography, video, and performance; from poetry and fiction to playwriting and creative non-fiction—artists and writers will present the work they’ve been making since the start of their residencies in September 2010.

In partnership with downtown’s generous real estate community, since 1997 Workspace, LMCC’s 9-month residency program, has provided valuable space, time, and community for experimentation, professional development, and dialogue to emerging visual artists and writers.

Dates & Times
Friday, May 13
Opening Reception: 7-9PM

Saturday, May 14
Open Hours: 12–5PM
Open Texts, Readings and Performances by our Writers-in-Residence: 5-7PM

Sunday, May 15
Open Hours: 12–5PM

Location
Workspace Studios
125 Maiden Lane, 14th Floor

All events are free and open to the public.
RSVP is required for all events.
For more information about the program, including biographies of our current residents, and to RSVP for events please visit our website: http://www.lmcc.net/residencies/workspace/open_studio_weekend/

Visual Artists-in-Residence

Leah Beeferman
caraballo-farman
Jonathan Ehrenberg
Kianga K. Ford
Meghan Gordon
Janelle Iglesias
Sara Jordenö
Chelsea Knight
Siobhan McBride
Eve Morgenstern
Shana Moulton
Olek
Ryan Schneider
Edgar Serrano
Curver Thoroddsen
Jason Villegas
Bryan Zanisnik

Writers-in-Residence

Barbara Cassidy
Jibade-Khalil Huffman
Elaine H. Kim
Stephen Motika
Molly Prentiss
Melissa Seley

The Whole Kingdom Waiting For A Kiss

2011-04-29T09:49:00.000-07:00

(Photograph sent by my mother, with the caption: "In honor of the royals.")

On the day of the royal wedding my mother got up early. She texted me (yes, my mother texted me): She is so beautiful. I texted back: Totally. She texted me: Look at all the hats! I texted back: Totally. Sick of my lack of creative response, my mother texted me a picture of herself, wearing a paper hat I had constructed in kindergarten, to which she had added a birds nest and a feather. She had put a single hydrangea in water, too, and sent me the photo of it with the caption: Never have a bouquet that is bigger than your head. Totally.

(PS: Captioning this photo made me think of a funny pun: RoyalTea!)

Switchin' It Up

2011-04-25T12:19:00.000-07:00

Just had an essay published in SFU's journal Switchback! (Issue 13, my lucky number!) Among other things, it is about my love for coffee and my desire to have William Kentridge's babies.

Check it out here!

Biutiful

2011-04-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

written after seeing Alejandro González Iñárritu's Biutiful.

Get into a fight with your boyfriend so you can get into the movies for free. At least it feels like it’s free because you didn’t notice that they took the money. You were in a fight.

In the dark say IM SORRY don’t mean it or do. The movie has bats or moths that rest into the ceiling, sleeping there, flattened. The only person you want to be in the whole movie is one of the moths.

Be a moth and gravitate towards any light you want. Whichever one feels right. Wrong lights, even. Florescent ones, about to burn your wing.

The heaps of trash in the movie. The bodies washing to the shore. You don’t have any problems but you want some. Gravitate towards any problem that you want.

IM SORRY you say but do you mean it. The dark is an easy place to apologize.

You cry only because the microphones are taped to the actor’s chests. When the actors hug each other the microphones get pushed up against their bodies and their hearts beat out into the theater. This is what makes you cry. This only.

Not the cigarettes she sucks on. Not Barcelona’s worst apartments. Not the bodies on the shore, the gas you can smell through the screen, the cancer. Nothing so bad makes a dent anymore. It is the small electronic pulsing that makes you wonder at the fact you are here, sitting in the movie theater, with someone you love so much.

We Miss You, Eli

2011-04-18T09:25:00.001-07:00

Seriously

2011-04-08T14:43:00.000-07:00

The other night, while acting as wing-woman for a blonder, cuter friend (not that she needed me, her blue eyes were doing quite good work for her), the boy she was working on suddenly turned to me. “You’re so serious!” he said, knotting his eyebrows, maybe in genuine concern or perhaps mocking my own furrowed brow. I had not meant to or known that I was acting or looking serious, and I immediately took offense. Was it my less high-lighted, newly central-parted hair that was doing it? The natural posture of my face (tight lips, a worried forehead)? My outfit: boyish pants, a grayish top, nothing flashy, as had been my M.O. lately? Was it in contrast to my buoyant, fresh-faced friend that I appeared so stern? Or was I actually, as this random tall man-boy proclaimed, so serious?

Now serious is something I have always taken seriously, mostly because of the worry that I, as a woman-person, might not be taken as such. (Seriously, that is.) For as long as I can remember I have been concerned that because I am a) a girl and b) blonde and c) fun I may be dismissed as a) dumb or b) ditzy or c) casual. Yes, casual, the opposite of serious, was something that have I dreaded as a label. But then why was I so offended when being called serious by the man I was wing-manning for? Wasn’t it what I had wanted? Wasn’t seriousness, after all, the female goal of the century? Did it make sense, as displayed by so many woman writers or intellectuals, that if we want to be taken seriously we should behave seriously?

At the un-serious job I have where I work to make money (making money=being taken seriously), I have the good fortune to be able to listen to the radio while I do my editing. I have been listening to everything from news shows to science podcasts to punk music to audio interviews (this is all part of my seriousness campaign: I’ll be able to site these small bits of knowledge in casual conversation later). Many of the interviews I have listened to have been with women writers, as I look to them for bits of writing life wise-ness, hoping, by some osmosis, that I will inherit a little bit of their vigor and intelligence by listening to them. What I have found is a serious conundrum: many women writers, the ones I love at least, sound imposingly, almost forbiddingly serious. Joan Didion speaks as if she’s got nails in her mouth, Lydia Davis sounds like she could use a cup of coffee, and Mary Gaitskill just seems mean. Why do these great women, whose voices sound so poignant on the page, have this commonly strained voice, this only occasional (and also strained) laughter, and a tone that says: don’t fuck with me, I’m smart as a whip and tough as my thickest hard-back volume?

In order to be taken seriously, that’s why. Not that this is a bad thing: the tough, serious woman showing the world that she’s a force to be reckoned with. But it sure doesn’t make you wanna invite them to your birthday party or take them out for a Cosmopolitan. They might scare you, intimidate you, or worse, let down their guard and show you that they’re just as goofy as you are when you get them alone. Either way, my question remains: is it this sense of seriousness that has afforded these women the respect of literary and intellectual communities? And if so, will I need to tighten my mouth a bit more, socialize a little bit less, stay inside a little bit more, smile a little bit less, read a little bit more, talk a little bit less, to afford it for myself? In other words, can I still laugh a lot and still be serious? Let’s hope so, ‘cause its about to be my birthday and I want to have some serious fun.

Bad Ass Women

2011-04-07T05:54:00.000-07:00

Thank you ODC for selecting me to attend the Women Who Frame the World Conference next week! I am so excited, especially because my amazing mother and god mother (The Kitchen Sisters) will be presenting, along with my dear friend and mentor Claudia Bernardi, founder of Walls of Hope, professor, writer, and inspiring woman. West Coast women here I come!

CREATIVE WOMEN CONFERENCE ENTRY

2011-04-02T10:33:00.001-07:00

Franca, instead of disappearing from his mind, visited him as he lay awake. First it was Franca in the bathtub, with her tiny hands scooping water. Then Franca riding her bike in a bird-like way, her elbows flapping at her sides. Franca making a mud pie in the back yard and serving it to him on a red plastic plate. Franca in those embroidered tunics with the stitches running around like ants on the fabric. Franca standing under their mother like a small version of their mother. Franca becoming a nest for secrets; telling Franca his secret of wanting to become an artist when their mother wanted a doctor and their dad wanted a philosopher, like he was. Franca getting chased by a bigger girl down an alleyway. Hitting the bigger girl with a stick to protect her and then feeling bad because he had hit a girl. Franca writing poems late at night and keeping him up with the light on. Franca screaming that she hated him because he cut a chunk of her hair off in the middle of the night because she had told his secret to their mother. Franca’s breath like an oven when she slept. Franca learning pastries from their mother. Franca not being patient enough for the pastries, wanting to run around outside. Franca growing breasts that first came out like little whipped cream peaks and then became big round cakes that he hated. Franca moaning with Morales in their parent’s room when their parents were not at home, how hearing her moans was like listening to a kitten dying. Franca marrying Morales in a church that felt like the oven of her mouth. Franca marrying Morales and it being a terrible decision. Franca and Morales at the family Christmas party telling everybody they were going to have a child. Franca’s hair getting redder and redder each year with new layers of dye. Franca leaving the bakery early to go to secret meetings. Franca being beautiful and then becoming ugly when she got fat. Franca still being beautiful. Franca with yellow tulips. Franca with yellow tulips

Big Desk / Little Desk

2011-03-27T12:03:00.000-07:00

I like being able to work in the same room as someone else.

Horses

2011-03-26T13:09:00.000-07:00

A group of my friends in San Francisco started saying "horses" for everything. The word was co-opted as a verb, as a greeting, and as a term of endearment. Instead of signing emails "Love, Sarah" they would say "Horses, Sarah." It replaced the lame sign off "Cheers!" It was a way to say that thing that you always want to say at the end of a letter to people you love, but usually can't quite express in an email. Instead of "I love you," "horses" became a way to say "I understand you."

The actual definition of a horse (Equus ferus caballus) "is a hooved (ungulate) mammal, a subspecies of the family Equidae." But our definition of a horse was a hooved ungulate spirit, a subspecies of our family of friends.

"The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today." But for us the horse evolved over the past two to three years from a small, one-syllable noun to the large, multi-purpose creature of a favorite word.

Horses means hilltops, fog, mix tapes, trips to Bernal Hill, meeting each other in the writing room, bravery, yerba mate, wool sweaters, whiskey at The Parkside instead of going to class, factorycompany meetings at Emily's house, Sarah's haircuts, readings, beaches, bay windows, freedom, student loans, the library smell, Junior's red glasses, hope, and most of all, writing for a living.

Also: my mom just produced a radio piece about girls and horses for NPR, and you should check it out here.

Horses,

Molly

Gertrude & Alice

2011-03-22T10:34:00.000-07:00

ELECTRIC DOMESTIC

2011-03-17T09:49:00.000-07:00

I become so paralyzed in the shampoo aisle. There are so many ways to look better than I do now, but I can’t have all of them. Imagining each bottle sitting on the rim of my bathtub. Would it look good there. Would I look good after I used what was in it. Inevitably the shampoo I choose is not the right one, and makes my hair either too greasy or too dry. Same goes for the make up and other products. Clips. Bands. I put all of these things on one shelf. The shelf is full of things that could make me look great. The less I use the things on this shelf, the better, but the more I buy them, the better I feel. I could pay $7.99 for a vanilla lotion and feel like I did something that day. I earned it, the smoothness and the smell. And I like being alone in the drug store, where the choices are all mine and the florescent lights accentuate life’s potential.

2011-03-16T14:13:00.000-07:00

Kurt Vile Lyrics That Make Me Want to Write Them Down:

Man I like your style. Make it last a little while.

I see a zig-zag embroidered above my family.

Fork lift mirage (!)

It’s alright to feel alive here.

Everyone that I know talks to me way too slow.

I ain’t ever harmed no one, but someone once said something that I hated on.

I don’t wanna go to work no more, cause I was an old man and that’s all I ever did.

I wanted everything, but I think that I only got most of it.

I got a freeway mind.

Diesel fumes up in my personal space.

You take in it all, and breathe it out slow.

His Mouth Could Mean Anything

2011-03-15T15:44:00.000-07:00

ANOTHER SNEAK PEAK: Oh, Gael!

Up close: There was a cleft in his chin that looked like Gael Garcia Bernal’s. It showed, somehow, that he was cultured. Paintings, books, objects and artifacts lived inside that little indentation. His skin: brown, smooth, obvious. His dreams: colorful, complex. A sparkle there, a splash of glitter in his hair, which was normal and soft, but then spangled. Far-apart eyes, which were ugly, but she could look past them, not at them. Wide nose, sloped and then broad. She slid off of the nose and down into the mouth. Mouth was a mountain range like the ones on the highway down the coast of California: golden and open, sleeping. He had read books. He had moved around. Or had he never been anywhere? His mouth could have meant anything. Perhaps he did graphic design. Maybe he sang. His mouth could definitely sing. He could have been one of those men who looked shy and acted shy and then they started singing and the shyness went away altogether. Adams apple, shirt collar, sweater. Itchy sweater. His mouth had an accent. Oh, Gael. Her friends would like him, or would they? Did he turn red when he drank too much alcohol? Did he kiss gently? Would the glitter fall from his hair and onto her stomach? She wanted to shake him, to see if it sprayed around, or if it stuck to him, as if in orbit. But what books had he actually read? Did he finish books? Or put them aside with twenty pages left, like she did, unless they were really good? Eyes were: what color? She couldn’t tell. Too much glitter. Hair growing slowly but evenly on his face. Did he smoke? She hoped. Did he dance? Whatever. Pupils were decidedly big, nervous, or just steady. Solid stance, like someone who could move up a mountain that was covered in rocks and not lose balance. His eyes were way too far apart, dopey or just make believe. Weak chin, if you look from the side. Black coffee, he said. Oh, Gael, she said, which came out as just: Oh-kay.

Works In Progress II

2011-03-10T09:33:00.000-08:00

Please join me at 125 Maiden Lane for the inaugural ESS ESS reading (part of a series curated by by dear friend Melissa Seley). March 23rd at 8pm! I will be reading alongside three stellar writers from my WORK IN PROGRESS!

Works in Progress

2011-03-04T09:34:00.000-08:00

Come to the LMCC Works in Progress Open Studios! This Sunday from 12pm - 6pm. I'll be in my studio (with champagne) all day, so stop by and say hi! More information here.

My First Interview

2011-03-01T17:35:00.000-08:00

Melissa Serpa of Fourteen Hills just interviewed me for their blog!

Check it out here.

I MISS FACTORYCOMPANY

2011-02-26T10:32:00.000-08:00

Emily is missing from this picture, but a frosty holiday framing technique is not. Re-visit factorycompany, with Sarah's new addition, Actually People.

xo, FC

Only In New York

2011-02-23T21:19:00.000-08:00

"Most everything was an act around here, she had learned, the way people dressed and the way people talked; everything was shorthand for something else. Wearing clothes that old people wore because you were young enough to wear old people’s clothes. Listening to music that hardly sounded like music. Reading books no one had heard of and owning obsolete items like record players or deer antlers, things that apparently signified that you were different, even when all those different things seemed the same as everyone else’s different things..."

(Excerpt from my novel in progress)

Hello to All This

2011-02-22T12:07:00.000-08:00

I have carried around my mother's copy of Slouching Towards Bethlehem since I first read it, about six years ago. The copy is a faded blue paperback a torn up spine and yellowing pages; it is one of those books whose pages might fall out in hefty chunks if you aren't careful. It is from 1961. The price of the book is $1.95.

Even though I have had this book for a long time I only noticed my mother's handwriting - on page 225, just before my favorite essay "Goodbye to All That" -- yesterday, when I went back to look for New York writing inspiration. (This essay, with it's perfect portrait of the New York newcomer, in her dress that she thought was "so smart" back in Sacramento, and upon arriving realizes that "smart" has a very new definition here, has stayed with me, defining what it means to arrive as a young, hopeful girl in New York City.) My mother's handwriting is light and brisk, in pencil, and it reads: "1961 -- Saturday Evening Post." Then, in that same pencil, there is a slash, crossing out the poem that precedes the essay (How many miles to Babylon...etc.)

Seeing this note on my favorite essay of one of my favorite books made me think about my mother at my age, on her first adventure in New York City, in her Lower East Side apartment that she's explained was full of rats, reading the essay and scribbling with her pencil. And did she feel just like Joan, like I do now, nearly 40 years later? Didion was 27 when she wrote this essay. I am almost 27 now. How old was my mother when she read this? And what did she know about the Saturday Evening Post from '61?

Did we all feel the way this essay describes (smart, then later, not so smart) when we arrived respectively in New York? And did we all feel it again, maybe even more palpably, when we read and re-read "Goodbye to All That?" Maybe this is what good writing is capable of -- transcending generations of newcomers and reminding them know they are not entirely alone...

(And for $1.95, I'd say that's a steal.)

Already Beautiful

2011-02-15T14:25:00.000-08:00

Click here to here Forrest's beautiful new song.

Dad's Response: "Four Person Show"

2011-02-07T19:58:00.000-08:00

Four Person Show

From my Dad's upcoming collection The Peanut Butter Footnotes

Sue, Nin, I, in the dark in the car honored

To be included in the peanut butter footnotes

Of your thoughts and illustrious career.

We are all so proud to be able to include your

Words and deeds and celebrations

In the footnotes of our own small biographies.

Love, Dad

Poem For My Dad

2011-02-06T09:46:00.000-08:00

One Man Show

Today I fill the almost empty

peanut butter jar with

molasses

and lick the knife

clean of the sweet, sticky mix.

It is something

that my father does

before he begins his afternoon

of painting.

That and three espressos,

one fish oil pill,

a couple games of sudoku,

laying horizontally

on the wire-frame,

back-lit bed.

Then up again, at quick attention,

a few plucks of the cigar-box ukulele,

and he’s off,

ready and juiced,

faithful

that by the time he walks

the planked path to the studio

he will be full again,

with more than enough colors,

and a new idea for how to fix

that rough-edged part,

in the corner there.

I finish off my jar

while looking out

on a snowy Brooklyn parking lot.

Slowly,

like molasses,

I am moved to begin

my own afternoon:

desk, computer, attention,

and finally,

some words.

My Boyfriend's Back

2011-01-24T20:51:00.000-08:00

Wanda and Wonder "Best Coast" from Forrest Lewinger on Vimeo.