There are times when I find a song which takes over my life, which I play constantly because I become drunk on the emotion it provokes. The last song which did this to me was Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends." My new obsession is "The Art Teacher," a song from Rufus Wainwright's latest album, Want Two. I referenced it in an earlier post. Of course, feelings of regret, lost opportunities, unattainable love, and the transformative power of art will always resonate with me. And I love when men sing from the perspective of women (which Morrissey did as well). I myself frequently write stories from male points of view. Anyway, here are the lyrics (although you've really got to hear it sung with Rufus' velvety tenor to get the chills):

The Art Teacher

There I was in uniform
Looking at the art teacher
I was just a girl then;
Never have I loved since then

He was not that much older than I was
He had taken our class to the Metropolitan Museum
He asked us what our favorite work of art was,
But never could I tell it was him
Oh, I wish I could tell him --
Oh, I wish I could have told him

I looked at the Rubens and Rembrandts
I liked the John Singer Sargents
He told me he liked Turner
Never have I turned since then
No, never have I turned to any other man

All this having been said,
I married an executive company head
All this having been done, a Turner - I own one
Here I am in this uniformish, pant-suit sort of thing,
Thinking of the art teacher
I was just a girl then;
Never have I loved since then
No, never have I loved any other man

Two great quizzes: What Dog are You? and Who are your dead celebrity soulmates?

A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a Radical Faerie drumming circle with Joe. My roommate's friend wanted to join us, so I invited her too. First I met Joe for sushi, and we finally got to talk about his exciting new job, which involves counseling and support for HIV+ deaf persons. I'm ridiculously thrilled for him. If I end up matching in NYC, we may even end up working in the same hospital! How crazy would that be?

Anyway, the drumming circle. I could hear the pounding of the drums outside the apartment, and I felt a flutter of excitement in my belly as we ascended the stairs. The apartment was enormous, and quite beautiful. The walls of the kitchen were completely covered with collages of magazine and art cut-outs, many of pop culture icons and fashion images--plenty of divas and muscular men. I was introduced to a few radical faeries, including a guy who wore an orange cap with a green stem, who called himself "Pumpkin." We moved to the den, where there were enormous, dramatic, mysterious paintings and a multitude of plants. A circle of men were pounding on their drums, some intensely, some merrily, some ecstatically. Joe started to do a sort of stomping tribal dance, and entreated me to join him, but I was too shy. I'm fond of dancing, but I prefer to do it with darkness and lots of other bodies to obscure me. I walked inside the circle to a basket of different musical objects--bells, rain sticks, maracas, and so on. I picked up a bell and began to hit it with a stick, in time with the music. Eventually I built up the courage to take a drum, and tentatively found a rhythm. After a few minutes, I really got into it, and lost myself. My hands began to hurt, but I didn't care...I needed to make noise, I needed to make my rhythm known, I needed to contribute to this community of sound. In a weird way, I felt connected to my drumming Korean ancestors, and I regretted not being a part of the Korean drum group in college. It was lovely. There were men dancing around us, reminiscent of a pagan ritual--some old, some young, some thin, some fat, and many scantily clad (Pumpkin, for example, was shirtless, and his too-loose pants kept drifting down to reveal the top of his asscrack and a bit of pubic hair). An older man performed acrobatic leaps and twirled around poles, and also grinded against a few of the other guys. The guy drumming next to me said, "It's such an amazing, transporting experience, isn't it? As good as drugs." As someone who's never done drugs, I couldn't say...but I did have a bitchin' time.

When we took a break from drumming, we went around the room and said our names. Some guys had nature-inspired names such as Waterfall, Moonbeam, and so on. I was just Elizabeth. An older gentleman commented that I had "wonderful energy" in my drumming, which was a nice compliment. I wish there were more drumming opportunities out there...I remember going to the huge drumming event which takes place every Sunday in the big park in Montreal. There were lots of competing drumming circles, as well as musicians who brought other instruments--trumpets, flutes, saxophones, and so on. It's so inspiring to see spontaneous communities form for the sole purpose of creating art and music.

Saturday: I met with an old friend whom I hadn't seen in almost a year. Although he has been through a lot, with a breakup and all, he was as crude and exuberant as ever. He has a kind of light about him, which I really enjoy. His friend mistook us for siblings. I'm not sure if it's because we look alike, or because we feed off of each other's energy.

Today: I wore a nametag inadvertently placed a little too low on my breast, and an older woman commented to me, "I like what you did with your tag." She was apparently not being sarcastic. The hell? Was she hitting on me? I am clueless when it comes to this sort of thing.

I have a fear of commitment to medicine, like many people have a fear of commitment in a relationship. I struggled so much with the decision to continue because I believed that all other possibilities, all other dreams, would disappear. If nothing else, my last relationship opened my eyes as to what life as an artist is really like, not how I idealized it to be. As far as I can tell, it involves a lot of compromise, a lot of self-doubt, and most likely, working a shitty day job to pay the bills. After working shitty day jobs, I've realized that I can't do this for much longer, and want to do work that I find meaningful again. After "playing the field" work-wise, I'm finally ready to commit to medicine. I think. Although I still intend to write, to draw, and to express myself creatively whenever I can. I'll go insane if I don't.

As for relationships, I still feel very young, and have no desire to be involved seriously with anyone. I feel like a bit of an anomaly, since so many of my friends are in serious relationships, or are looking to settle down. Eventually I wish to meet someone who satisfies me physically, emotionally, and intellectually...the best I've done so far is 2 of 3. But for now, I just want to figure out what to do with myself, create something meaningful, and be free for adventure.

My father had a dream a couple of nights ago. He was walking on a sandy beach, and viewed a figure in the water. He approached, and saw that it was me. I was wielding three fishing nets (one in each hand, and one attached to my waist) in a complicated maneuver, yet he noticed a very serene expression on my face. As he watched, he saw that I had reaped an abundance of live, wiggling, shiny fish in my nets.

I've never had any sort of dream which was a premonition, but maybe my father is able to tap into something that I can't. I can only hope this means good things for me.

This is dorky, but I'm a little excited that I was quoted in someone else's personal blog (talking about Creed Angelique Encens and Comme des Garcons Ourzazate, which are both amazing incense fragrances, by the way). I need to start writing other stuff too. Like that languishing novel/screenplay/comic book that just needs to get the fuck off the ground already...

And...this was the next email I sent to the very same guy. We really did have a nice exchange of letters for awhile. This one was also sometime around late 2002/early 2003. Hopefully I've matured since then, in some ways at least. I did actually buy a pair of Banana Republic khakis after writing it (for shame!)

Dear _____,
However I try to relate to the dull and conformist masses, I have no desire to become one of them, and keep the distinction clear. Despite others’ claims of my elitism and snobbery, I refuse to see trashy Hollywood movies that I know that I’ll despise, to pretend that I’m not a feminist, to use language that simply repeats what others mindlessly express with no hint of individuality or creativity, or to be happy about corporate America as long as I get my Starbucks coffee and Banana Republic khakis. In a review of a movie called “Ghost World,” the writer described one of the main characters as a “maladjusted searcher for authenticity,” and that’s sometimes how I see myself (when I’m feeling especially pretentious). So, in kind of a fucked up way, I try to seek out authenticity in others, to get them to reveal to me what others do not accept: the ugly, the shameful, the disgusting, the misunderstood beauty that is not deemed acceptable by our current social standards. I apologize if I’m repeating myself…this is a song that I sing quite often, and I suspect that I may have already tired your ear with it.

Anyway, at the moment, I feel like the conflict is not so much whether to have bland friends or not, but whether to push my bland friends to talk about what interests me, rather than babble about gossip or about the weather or about celebrities. I tend to be somewhat passive in conversation, especially conversation in large groups…if I were to take more of an initiative, to push people to speak about topics that actually occupy my mind rather than make noise for the sake of forgetting how lonely we are…then maybe I’d find my friendships more fulfilling. Then again, I have tried pushing friends to talk about meaningful topics from time to time, with less than satisfying results. So maybe I’m fooling myself…maybe I would do better to turn to Camus after all…(I’m actually looking to read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason first, in addition to all the other books that I have to finish, but Camus was an old favorite of mine back when I was taking French classes…his style is the complete opposite of mine, pithy but profound with brilliantly developed images, which both thrills and irritates me because I know that right now I can’t produce anything with such power.)

Your description of your love for travel and your desire to become a “wandering scholar” made me smile, at least partly due to recognition. I spent some of this past summer wandering around the south of France, and it felt like my mind cleared and I gained so much interest into my surroundings, so much insight into myself and the world around me. I became fascinated with every detail I encountered; each movement, each person was a revelation. I completely understand how the world becomes simpler and more beautiful, and the people become less threatening and more fascinating, as you described. How incredible it is to lose yourself in observation…life as art, really. I felt the return of my inner voice…after being quiet for so long, sublimated as I tried not to think too deeply during this past year, it reemerged with a vengeance, refusing to shut up and to stop its gushing stream of ideas and images and dreams. My mind was so fertile, writhing excitedly with newfound activity, after its too-long hibernation. My existence weaved in and out of the existences of others, as I made transitory connections with other people, whether it was shared appreciation for a painting, or flirtation over mysterious alcoholic concoctions under strings of lights, or sex in someone’s cluttered, smoky apartment. And rather than feeling alienated and alone, I felt myself melt into my surroundings, and felt more comfortable and free than I had in ages.

During my last day in France, I went to the Maeght Foundation museum in a tiny medieval town close to Nice. The museum itself was founded and designed by Chagall, Braque, and Miro, among others. Right by the museum there was the Saint Bernard Chapel, a tiny wooden construction with a room filled with a wooden carved crucified Christ, originally Spanish in origin, from the XV century. Above this sculpture there was a stained glass window designed by the Cubist artist Georges Braque, of a dove flying amidst a translucent purple landscape. I was never particularly struck by carved Christ faces that I have seen before, but something about this Spanish Christ pricked my eyes with tears. The most eloquent expression sorrow I had ever seen was somehow encompassed into that face, and I felt it in my bones. I sketched it in my journal (rather decently, too). Later that evening, after I had returned to Nice, I decided to go to the Cimiez monastery, where one can supposedly see a beautiful flower garden that overlooks the Baie des Anges. I discovered upon getting off the bus that a jazz festival was taking place in the monastery that evening, and decided to go, on a whim. An excerpt from my frantic journal writings during the event: “As I lay down against the trunk of the olive tree in the Cimiez jardin, my plastic bag filled with all the things I deemed necessary for the day serving as a pillow, I listened peacefully to the jazz music played onstage. There were men playing brass horns and guitars with simultaneous precision and indulgent abandon. It was by far the most expert and soaring jazz of the night, and after I had wandered up close to the stage to get a sense of what was visually happening, I felt free to just lie down and look up at the sky, the silver green leaves twirling and fluttering in the gentle evening wind. My eyes were half-lidded as I looked occasionally at the faces before me who were watching the concert; I was experiencing the music by watching their faces. Their expressions and their movements gave me enough information as to what was happening on stage. And then I noticed one particular face – it was the Christ face on the cross in the Saint Bernard Chapel earlier today. His face was so handsome and arresting that I had to fight from gulping him whole with my eyes, instead taking discrete little sips, so he wouldn’t notice how taken I was with him. He was so utterly and completely transfixed by the music – his body was possessed, wiggling his arms and legs, sometimes fluttering his fingers, like he was a dangling marionette. There’s little more beautiful to me than a person dancing without inhibitions, and he was radiantly beautiful at that moment. In contrast to his Jesus face, he had a ’70’s hairdo, flipped out by the cheekbones and curly to the shoulders, and was wearing a blue tank top with horizontal stripes, and odd red pants that poofed a tiny bit and stopped below his knees. I got the sense that he was gay from the way that he looked and was looked at by men who bumped into him or walked closely by him. My homoerotic ecstatically dancing Jesus. I felt like I could die right then, in the shelter of that olive tree with the silvery green ribbons floating above me, the mournfully faced yet radiant gay Jesus dancing frenetically before me, sweet intricate jazz sliding into my ears, smooth as butter. I felt warm and utterly at peace, my eyelids heavily obscuring my vision, the colors melting into each other but swirling graceful lines still distinguishable, and my mouth in a blissful half-smile, which may have been enigmatic to anyone who chose to look as (s)he stepped over my limbs strewn about the tree’s base.”

Shit. You really suckerpunched me with your description of your relationship with the girl who had such a predilection for asshole boyfriends. You started off with some bitterly sharp humor which made me laugh despite myself, and then you swerved into such gorgeous poetry that my breath was taken away. I imagine that you’ll continue to vacillate back and forth between the two extremes you described, of needing and exchanging vs. withdrawing and observing, before you settle on one or the other. It seems that when you (or I, or anyone) begin with one extreme, it seems so perfect and lovely and dandy, but then gets tiresome as you start to think more and more about the other extreme, which becomes more and more attractive…and eventually you switch over to the other extreme, and start all over again. Ideally, you could merge these two extremes which right now seem so diametrically opposed, but if there’s a way to do it, I sure as fuck haven’t found it yet. Still, let’s save the cynicism for when we’ve amassed more wrinkles and creaky joints, and continue to search for that elusive balance…or some other alternative that works better and leaves us fulfilled and satisfied. Or maybe this sort of pendulum is necessary for growth, for change, for movement…who would want to be so fulfilled and satisfied that life becomes static? (I remember as a five year old girl lying in my bed at night, unable to sleep, thinking about death, I was horrified at the thought of heaven and eternal life…because there would be no change. Heaven would be always perfect, for all eternity. Every day would be exactly, blissfully, the same, and there would be no end. For whatever reason, this terrified me more than the idea that our lives would end with death and our bodies would rot away). But then again, who cares if life is static, if you’re fulfilled and satisfied? Gah. Experience, as you say, may lead to more answers, or at least more questions which may flesh out the dilemma.

There’s something about Belle and Sebastian that works well with traveling through England…I listened to them constantly when I was wandering around Edinburgh, and their songs perfectly complemented the green rolling hills and densely situated gray Victorian (or so I’ve been told) buildings soaked with rain. My signature song is “Judy and the Dream of Horses” from the “If you’re feeling sinister” album…I constantly sing it out loud in the car, or walking in hospital hallways as I go from patient to patient, pretending that I have a star and a parrot on my shoulders. You may also want to check out the Reindeer Section, which is a hodgepodge band filled with members of Belle and Sebastian, Snow Patrol, and others. I think that “If Everything Fell Quiet” is one of the most beautiful yet simple love songs that I’ve ever heard.

I hope that you haven’t completely abandoned your admittedly idealistic vision of how architecture may better the world. I imagine that through your studies you’ll continue to develop your philosophy and hone your ideas regarding what you want to accomplish with architecture, and how you can use your skills to improve quality of life (such a popular catchphrase in the medical community, ugh). And how architecture can perhaps truly revolutionize the way we interact with our environment and with each other in the confines of our shared environment. I won’t write too much more about this since you mentioned wanting to take a break from thinking about it, but you’ve certainly impressed upon me the tremendous power that architects have to shape our lives. Although there is the risk of catastrophe you mentioned, I perhaps naively feel like risks need to be taken in order to improve the shitty states of existence here in the States in this day and age, whether in rundown urban wastelands or cookie cutter suburban hell…perhaps some are complacent with their current conditions, but how could they know any better when their souls and their free-thinking minds have been sucked out of them? I am assuming that I know better than the majority of this country’s population, but, well…look at the approval ratings of our current president. And the top five movies at the box office. Alas, my snobbery and elitism make themselves known once again.

--Me

Okay. I've started 2 or 3 posts, but still haven't finished them. So I'm going to cheat a little, and start posting my old e-mails, which are pretty much like my blog entries now--random thoughts and anecdotes. Anyway, here's the first, from around October/November 2002. It was written to an architect, with whom I'm no longer in contact.

Dear ___,

OK. Language. Well, for a long time I struggled with being forced to use a language that was not my own. Sure, as a teenager desperately trying to forge an identity—and who chose her identity to be “I-will-challenge-all-of-your-expectations-of-what-I-should-do-or-say feminist”—I attempted to alter some of the more sexist aspects of the English language. E.g. I would write “wommon” rather than “woman” and use “she” as the impersonal pronoun rather than “he.” I no longer view “woman” as a sexist spelling, but continue to use “wommon” anyway (and “womyn” for the plural) because I think it’s good to use at least a couple of words differently from the established spelling or pronunciation (to remind myself, and others who can somehow understand, that strict adherence to rules without some questioning should be avoided). I was distressed to realize, however, that altering a few words didn’t disguise the fact that I was using a language, and usually following the rules, established by dead white men centuries before I was born. And language is far from objective—the words that you use are imperfect approximations of what they describe, and you’re forced to acknowledge that subjectivity every time you use those words that were created or chosen by someone else: some languages have twenty words for rice, some have only the present tense of verbs, some tend to have more abstract words, etc. As a staunch individualist (is there such a word? I think you get my meaning), I didn’t want to use a language that wasn’t completely my own…I dreamed of creating an entirely new language for myself. (My friend David dreamed with me…although he insisted that we keep the word “episode” from the normal English language, since he found it so beautiful.) But of course, if you create a completely personal and self-created language, then no one else can understand you, and you lose the ability to communicate with others. At this time I placed very little importance upon language and used it sparingly, instead focusing on art, which I felt was a kind of personal language through image. Until I realized that I could make these written and spoken words my own through the use of metaphor. No longer would the words’ meanings be solely determined by Webster’s—they could mean anything that I wanted, as long as I subverted their classical meanings by creating new meanings of my own. Like taking a square of paper and folding it, origami style, into any crane or fish or dinosaur that I wished. So the dilemma wasn’t completely solved, but I did re-embrace language as a means of artistic expression. There’s more of course, but I won’t burden you with it

I’m listening to my latest purchase, Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” which strangely seems like an appropriate aural backdrop for this long overdue letter. I’m also all aglow from checking out the Wilco documentary, “I am trying to break your heart,” about the making of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which I listened to over and over and over and over again this past summer. God, I had forgotten how much music can make me feel, and how much it can heal. Same goes for art…when I was fucking drowning in despair after losing a kid last Wednesday (one that I was caring for during my current Pediatrics rotation…she was only thirteen), I was able to escape from the pain and somehow exist on this alternate plane which was pure light, pure motion, no thought, no body. My existence was narrowed down to a precise point of concentrated power. This is what happens when I draw or paint.

So to begin, I’m going to comment on the e-mail that you wrote months ago describing your thoughts about architecture and what it means. I must guiltily admit that in the past I was of the group who barely paid any attention to the buildings around her, and when I thought consciously thought about architecture, I thought about the Guggenheim or other showy buildings that deviate greatly from more generic-looking ones. Ugh, how awful it is to see that I’m just like rest of the ignorant masses in this regard! I think I’m slowly gaining a greater appreciation for architecture though…I decided to work on a silkscreen project for a friend of mine, and have chosen as my subject some areas in downtown Durham. Although the buildings are aging and peeling and clothed in faded pastel hues, I’m quite enamored of the tension between the decay and the spic-and-spam prim ’50’s sensibility. I say this with very little authority, since I am totally ignorant about what exactly ’50’s architecture is…but, well, I guess the buildings in downtown Durham remind me of the desolate buildings in Edward Hopper paintings. They’re starkly simple and beautiful, especially after all the frilly excess of French buildings that my eyes tired of seeing during this past summer.

Okay. So to go back to your e-mail (how quickly I get distracted!) I was struck by how your description of the divide between the phenomenologists and political architects seemed to echo what I was reading earlier today about the divide between the Romantic poets Keats and Shelley; the writer described Keats as a poet who yearned for a life of pure sensation, while Shelley wished to put poetry at the center of politics, to reshape a more just and egalitarian world. I don’t agree wholly with the writer’s supposed opposition between the two poets, but it was fun to wrap my mind around a dichotomy that echoed the one that I explored months ago when reading your words. It seems that the phenomenologists were about simply feeling and experiencing…that the person who is experiencing the architectural object is a partner in its creation. While the political architects seem to be like designers of a pipe system, or of a dairy farm: making sure that the flow of moving things is as untroubled and logical as possible, with much less allowance for the individual experience and more interest in directing large groups of people. While I do have such an affection for the Romantics, I must admit that there is much value in the logical construction of a building or city. There was many a time while lost in the crazy spiderweb of streets in Paris when I wished I was back in the easy-to-follow grid of streets in Manhattan. But then…in Manhattan you don’t come across lots of hidden secret gardens and other surprise spots in the same way that you while wandering in Paris. When walking through a city that is not so logically designed, you become so much more aware of your surroundings. Whereas in a city that is logically designed, your surroundings fade away, unnoticed, as you head toward your destination, conscious of how many right angle turns you’ll need to make before getting there. Form vs. function I suppose. Like reading a novel for the languages and images vs. for the plot.

I had not realized how the personal visions of the architects Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright led to the unfortunate byproducts of dilapidated urban ghettos and mind-numbingly conformist suburbia. It’s quite disenchanting to see how these lovely ideas meant to make our living situations more humane get completely fucked up in their execution and their unchecked overabundance.

So what do you see as the purpose of architecture? What is your own philosophy about the meaning of what you do? Or do you simply do it, without bogging yourself down with too much philosophy about the purpose of it all? (Somehow I don’t see that from you.) I imagine, from your description of how you work, that you incorporate aspects of both the phenomenologists and the political architects…what other considerations do you make about the effect the building will have on its inhabitants, and how the inhabitants will respond to the building?

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been having a rough time with the death of one of my patients, especially since I feel partially (although irrationally, as the residents have told me repeatedly) responsible. She had a genetic disorder that made her unable to metabolize protein, and would have episodes of greatly increased blood levels of ammonia, which is toxic to the body (especially the brain). She was admitted because she was suffering the effects of too much ammonia: confusion, dizziness, somnolence, and weakness. She was put on medication to bring her ammonia back down, which worked, but somehow, without warning, she suddenly shut down. Her brain scans revealed that her brain was swollen with fluid, and she was clinically brain dead. Her family is just devastated, of course, and I’m overcome with sadness for them, as well as guilt…I keep thinking that if I had been more thorough, if I had looked carefully enough, I could have seen something that perhaps could have tipped the odds in her favor. I suspect that it comes from trying to combat helplessness and lack of control…by thinking that I could have changed the outcome, I can fool myself into thinking that I had some power, some effect on this kid’s survival. I don’t know. When I spoke with her mom before the event leading to her brain death happened, she had been so hopeful that her daughter would get better. She described her daughter’s flourishing interest in reading and writing, her daughter’s constant fighting with her brother (“although he feels guilty as anything when she ends up in the hospital”…God, what he must be going through right now), her daughter’s pride in her hair which she had grown all the way down to her waist. I’m constantly haunted by images of her comatose body in the Intensive Care Unit, her forehead stained brown for a reason that is unknown to me, her family crowded around her bed, in vigil. Her parents wiping tears from their eyes, their faces immeasurably weighed by grief. Her grandmother’s mouth drawn down and her eyes empty of hope, the way she shook her head when I, in my ignorance of the full extent of what happened, asked if the girl would be OK.

Well, it’s 2:20 a.m., and I still have to write my H&P, and have to wake up to be at the hospital by 6:00 a.m….so unfortunately I’ll wait until the next e-mail to write about chaos and about the art exhibits that I saw in France (which you saw, too…at least in my mind) and my gay ecstatically dancing Jesus in a blue tank top and red clam digger pants and a seventies David Cassidy hairdo. I hope that all is well with you.

--Me

P.s. To just start the bit on my thoughts about Chaos, I was struck by how those who came up with it were able to disregard classically defined limits imposed by conventional physics and mathematics to understand this beautiful concept that had been hidden all this time as scientists disregarded “experimental error.” It reminds me of a quote from a David Mack comic book (paraphrased): “The rational conform to the rules of the world, while the irrational make the world conform to their rules. Therefore, all important breakthroughs are made by irrational people.” Now, I take some issue with his use of the words “rational” and “irrational”; I don’t think the dichotomy is really correct with those words as the opposing poles. But I think that the sense of his statement is still so important. That pioneers of any kind, whether in physics or art or medicine, must break free of the limitations imposed by previous interpretations of their fields in order for new discoveries to be made. This was certainly the case with the Cubist artists, the modernist writers, and those who created the theory of Chaos. And, well, any link that I can draw between science and art makes me happy, especially a virtue of art that I believe in so passionately: destroying perceived limits and expanding the possibilities of thought and experience and understanding, opening our eyes to previously unseen aspects of existence.