let us charge the sun!
let it take us hostage!
let us be free!

everything is beautiful,
because it has the potential to hurt
(sorry kurt)

hollow success
inspired
f r e e to fly
away we go
coincidences(?)
beauty
spiritual connection
magnets
(there are no coincidences)

syracuse, ny // april 2009

where the doors are moaning all day long,
where the stairs are leaning dusk 'till dawn,

where the windows are breathing in the light,
where the rooms are a collection of our lives,

this is a place where i don't feel alone
this is a place that i call my home...

// 'that home' by cinematic orchestra

overcoming nausea (an ode to jean-paul)

i am alone.

i am entirely alone. i rely on no one for nothing and if you were to ask me, in this moment, if i am okay, i would open my mouth. and what would i be surprised to hear if it was anything but an outpouring of white noise. static from another dimension, channeling itself through me.

i am a vessel.

i am entirely a vessel. i am simply the transmission of ideas my mind pulls from the air as antennae. no thought is my own. i am in flux, all is derived from the elements. all is an abstraction, a derivative. all is beautiful, so consummatingly beautiful.

i am beautiful.

i am entirely beautiful. i have ten fingers for reaching. i have two pupils that dilate in the light, and strong legs that carry me away. i have a brain that can out beat my legs in carrying me away. i have a brain that out beats even my own heart.

i am a heart.

i am entirely a heart. i beat increasingly less with each ephemeral breath. here i know nothing. i cannot surrender myself. i am inhibited and in actuality i do not believe in surrender but the opposite. a fade from black to grey or from white.

i am grey.

i am entirely grey. i do not think in spectral terms. i am a colorless entity. i am an entity that is colorless and therefore i think about you in terms you cannot understand. explanation would be superfluous in this world of heather. explanation would be superfluous in this world defined solely through meaningless explanation.

i am meaningless.

i am entirely meaningless. i am infused with so much meaning that i have been reverted back to primordia. the lord has basted too much into me. too much reliance, too much belief. i am supersaturated, bloated with thoughts. i am bloated with the sheer prospect of bloating itself. too much salt, they tell me.

erin mulvehill // 2009

surround yourself with people that understand.
and in times when you cannot seem to find this, be comfortable with being alone.

ive grown reclusive in the past weeks.

mutual understanding.

heart |härt|noun1 a hollow muscular organ that pumps the blood through the circulatory system by rhythmic contraction and dilation. In vertebrates there may be up to four chambers (as in humans), with two atria and two ventricles.• the region of the chest above the heart : holding hand on heart for the Pledge of Allegiance.• the heart regarded as the center of a person's thoughts andemotions, esp. love or compassion : hardening his heart, he ignored herentreaties | he poured out his heart to me | he has no heart.• one's mood or feeling : they had a change of heart.• courage or enthusiasm : they may lose heart as the work mounts up |Mary took heart from the encouragement handed out | I put my heart and soul into it and then got fired.2 the central or innermost part of something : right in the heart of the city.• the vital part or essence : the heart of the matter.• the close compact head of a cabbage or lettuce.3 a conventional representation of a heart with two equal curves meeting at a point at the bottom and a cusp at the top.• ( hearts) one of the four suits in a conventional pack of playing cards, denoted by a red figure of such a shape.• a card of this suit.• ( hearts) a card game similar to whist, in which players attempt to avoid taking tricks containing a card of this suit.4 [usu. with adj. ] the condition of agricultural land as regards fertility.

photography is so beautiful it hurts.

(photo by silvino mendonca)

'what youth and beauty these creatures bare'
matthew woodson

phlox tsemel

to the ruins // syracuse, ny

shot these a few weeks ago for a banana republic campaign emulation

styling/art direction by skyler dobin

just finished 17 page portion of thesis (!!!) now for the one-page abstract and 4-6 page summary before sunrise. hi ho silver, away!

to my credit, its not due until later this week. buttt my reader wants to review it tomorrow morning so i must oblige.

'thinking is more interesting than knowing,

 but less interesting than looking.'

- goethe

devon aoki is very beautiful.

'computers are useless. they can give you only answers.'

- picasso

...

I lifted my eyes to the window, red walls of buildings flashed outside,
endless sky sad Eternity
sunlight gazing on the world, apartments of Harlem standing in the
universe--
each brick and cornice stained with intelligence like a vast living face--
the great brain unfolding and brooding in wilderness!--Now speaking
aloud with Blake's voice--
Love! thou patient presence & bone of the body! Father! thy careful
watching and waiting over my soul!
My son! My son! the endless ages have remembered me! My son! My son!
Time howled in anguish in my ear!
My son! My son! my father wept and held me in his dead arms.

excerpt from psalm iv by allen ginsberg, 1960

i am in awe of this relationship.
i cant stop watching videos/reading about them. its brilliant.
i think they were truly in love + i question whether we will ever be able to understand just how precious that was.

cornfield with crows // van gogh, 1890

michael dweck

from mermaids, 2005-2007

christo makes veils.

his works make me want to cry.

if i could, i would open up your head, slicing with delicate and extreme care the outer limits of your flesh into the warmed bone that lies slumbering beneath. upon seeing your brain, i would reflect, genuflect for it sits sacred on its altar.

if i could, i would lean forward and with delicate and extreme care i would brush my lips on the very center of your cognition. ever so slightly i would kiss the part where right meets left.

if i could, i would watch with delicate and extreme care what effect this had on the circuits. im not sure i would want to know, but i think i would, for honestys sake. as your upper incarnates sit overturned on the table beside us like a soup bowl begging for sustenance, i will take you by the shoulders with delicate and extreme care and look straight into your cerulean quicksand eyes.

upon meeting your gaze, with one quick sweeping motion i will yank open my own skull and, leaning over you ever so delicately and ever so carefully, i will pour everything that exists inside of me into you. and for those seconds as that murky viscose liquid transposes from me to you i will probably feel like we are one. (and i am sorry if, with delicate and extreme care, i nod my head as if to say 'i understand' as i shake out each drop).

awake, taking your hands in mine as the last drops disperse, i fall, vacant and empty into your lap. a hollow sound resonates in my ears, deafening like the silence under water, absent of calm. i muster energy to turn over, in attempts to get one last look at your face. you free your hands of mine and reach over to the table, unscathed. and with delicate and extreme care you lift your skull and your flesh back up to its altar. i realize your eyes have not moved from their gaze on the wall and i can think no more. everything has been surrendered to you. i try to reach up to touch your face one last time. you look down, i fall, into the quicksand.

// erin mulvehill
(ive started writing again)

marika ryu

dear nytimes news alert,
thank you very much for sending me news of the death of three somalian pirates on this easter sunday.

bless the children for they are blissfully aware
a few thesis photos from children in colombo, sri lanka

ive been working on my thesis a whole lot the past few days. im in awe of how children see the world so clearly through an untainted lens. looking at their photos + reading what they have to say is a true spiritual cleansing. i am thankful.

new work (in progress)

portrait project
hillside childrens center // syracuse, ny

my parents on their honeymoon

hawaii // may 1980

theres a million things i could
send into the air
to meet your ear and
make you think twice
but i am not like that
so i will sit here in silence
waiting in the dark
eyes closed
i hope
you realize its fragility
before the hourglass heart
meets the floor

abbott thayer

edvard munch. genius.
the kiss iv + consolation // late 19th century

much more than that screaming figure
(ps we share the same initials)

ave maria gratia plena

maria gratia plena

maria gratia plena

ave, ave dominus

dominus tecum

benedicta tu in mulieribus

et benedictus

et benedictus fructus ventris

ventris tui jesus

ave maria

ave maria mater dei

ora pro nobis pecatoribus

nunc et in hora mortis

in hora mortis nostrae

in hora mortis, mortis nostrae

in hora mortis nostrae

ave maria

//

82. song of the open road

from leaves of grass by walt whitman

1.

afoot and light-hearted, i take to the open road,

healthy, free, the world before me,

the long brown path before me, leading wherever i choose.

henceforth i ask not good-fortune - i myself am good fortune;

henceforth i whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,

strong and content, i travel the open road.

the earth - that is sufficient;

i do not want the constellations any nearer;

i know they are very well where they are;

i know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(still here i carry my old delicious burdens;

i carry them, men and women - i carry them with me wherever i go;

i swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them;

i am fill'd with them, and i will fill them in return.)

17.

allons! the road is before us!

it is safe - i have tried it - my own feet have tried it well.

allons! be not detain'd!

let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen'd!

let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn'd!

let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!

let the preacher in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.

mon enfant! i give you my hand!

i give you my love, more precious than money,

i give you myself, before preaching or law;

will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?

shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

//

duane hanson

'it's the human attitudes i'm after -- fatigue, a bit of frustration, rejection. to me there is a kind of beauty of in all this'