Bacchus, these inebriated veins were sun-kissed vineyards once.
There are moments or periods when it would be wonderful to plan something and do it and have the thing only do what you planned to do, and then, there are other times when the destruction of those planned things becomes interesting to you.
- Franz Kline
It’s finals week, and I’ve worked on over four articles this week and one fiction short story. So I’m getting kind of tired while trying to balance it all with copy editing and school! Anyway, while I wish I could be blogging…I’ll be in Turkey (and blogging) soon enough!! Give me a week! Meanwhile…enjoy this Swedish photographer’s art…the process is fascinating if you get a chance to read his blurb on it!
Read on the Hayden’s Ferry Review blog about what it was like becoming a ghostwriter for Neil Strauss!
This was truncated from its original version in order to fit the normal Cup of Ambition series layout.
Know who you are, because love and fear create hate.
the bells won’t. stop. he whispers. tintinnabulation. ears won’t. stop. the canal. echoes. back. forth head. one side. to the next. you. hold breath. it continues. not living. inside. you. and consumes. you. food coloring. identity. glass of water. words. he twisted fit. grooves. of your brain. scared to shower. if flowers grow.
it’s night, the bells are ringing. you know it’s time to go.
Remember when your geography teacher would tell you about imaginary lines with “imaginary” names like Prime Meridian and Equator…and Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn…it’s the first time a child is given words for the phenomena of uniting differences and the invisible symmetry that makes us all equal…or human…
-Primal scream before light turns green.
-Skittles all fall at same speed in a vending machine
-Bird hits window to change channel
-Underwater porthole show whales on chemo
N.A.S.A. “Way Down” (feat. RZA, Barbie Hatch, & John Frusciante)
beautiful. i wish i had more to say. instrumental from ‘71. Frusciante did something similar on Empyrean with “Before the Beginning.”
Stories I write for my journalism class give readers insight to a community. I find them generic and their importance is gauged by how much a reader can identify with his or her community. The end justifies the means.
But interviews for profiles are the opposite. The means justify the end. When I interview a person, I sincerely hope I’m able to guide them to new revelations about old thoughts or new refelctions on passing thoughts. The answers will not be as thought out, but they’ll be organic and worth remembering.
I don’t know if I achieved that with Neil Strauss yesterday. He wanted to give me the reigns of the interview, but alas, I was ultimately the student. I think he understood I was new, and he wanted to give me a vehicle to extract information from someone who, frankly, is an artist of the interview.
OK, honestly, I’m not one for idolization.
But there are some people who just happen to fall into a mentorship position, some from afar and some closer to home.
Neil Strauss has been unknowingly an inspiration since I got my first Rolling Stone in seventh grade. I liked his name, initially, because I was too young to really understand what made a good writer. But the appreciation has grown since, and I’ve been following his work for years. I’ve gone through the “I want to be a rock journalist” stage and back many times.
Yesterday, I got to interview him for Hayden’s Ferry Review (a literary journal where I intern).
In all fairness, not my best interview. I already have reporter’s remorse (something that I think only new journalists can honestly relate to); thinking of better questions than the ones I asked or other ways to have reacted to his responses….
It’s like there’s no excuse to not have a good interview anymore. Via the Internet, people can search through archives of almost any magazine, newspaper or blog to find out what has already been asked and reported on…
I’ve read it all (or most of it, trust me) but the purpose of the HFR interview was to focus on his experiences as a ghostwriter.
Not a chance.
He’s too fascinatingly multifaceted to even stay on topic. I was all over the place, something, I think, he sensed. (Sorry!)
In retrospect it was a refreshing glimpse into his amazing life, but also why I’m doing what I’m doing. I love learning about people. All of the government reporting is just something that takes my thoughts away from my goals. This was just…so needed on a personal level…beyond the HFR blog.
So, thank you, Neil, for re-inspiring a struggling journalism student.
You can read the write-up here.
Growing up sucks…. It’s time to leave those who want to stay a slave to their co-dependent emotional needs…I’ve got my shadow to keep me company.
I frequently exploit myself, freestyling on your reactions like an unbonded hydrogen, or any other diatom.
Your music is like my thoughts that haven’t found their words, and your potential energy is sucking me into the black hole of your universe.
If you wanna hang out, you gotta take her out. You lay down the track, peeking over my back to look on syllables I’m spitting at.
And you wanna know why the apple’s on fire? You want to hear about my indian summer? You wanna feel the string getting tighter around my ring finger as I type another fucking useless word about you?
