Turn in your books to page three-hundred and ninety-four...

Dang Potions Class (Year One)

I want to write a lot about it, however time will not allow this....which is kind of neat - almost being forced to go on the ride without being able to process it much; oh, and 'it' being school.

Between work and the overtime being required there, school and the homework mostly, I loved reading about the two feet of parchment Snape would require from his fifth years; I can't imagine what O.W.L.'s were like to take.

Further, as we all are, I'm fighting a Dark Lord as well. So put that in your Felix Felicis and drink it.

"Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" - Matt 6:21

How, I don't know, but there is a world that is soon going to end. It has carried me for some time. It brought me out of the world I was having trouble accepting into a world where magic and love and danger and triumph walk with a gigantic gate - blowing away hearts and minds with the wind of their stride. The work grew into me as I grew with it. It's Western Literature at some of its finest. I can feel the characters and settings and conversations, throbbing on my eyes and in my chest like recalling an old memory. It's that vivid; that engrossing. As usual, ironically, I was told over and over to read them, "No." - something about me just doesn't lend myself easily to recommendations - though as I have matured, I find certain people's suggestions taken more comfortably.

As a new semester has me in new and full time classes, I am placed amongst an English class which has been a pretty good time - though I often feel the need for a time turner. The English is academic, but I finally understand wanting to be able to write. Until now this feeling eluded me, I had no idea how one could not write; when the emotions and ideas take hold of me and tear me apart, sometimes in joy, sometimes in agony - ink pours where blood should; and words and paragraphs and stories and allegory and aphorisms and poetry form like puddles of a wasted self, suddenly renewed, suddenly emboldened.

Recognizing the artistry in this lengthy body of work juxtaposed against my own, and with my general place in maturation, I wish to know how to form the ink I spill into art. To not just write because I'm dying or living, or to write as dying and living, but to die and live, and translate the experience so utterly staggeringly. I feel a daunting presence, lost for some time, of deep desire; I feel the will raising it's head, breathing more consciously that it previously has.

Ready to end this long road, knowing I'm coming to a place in the last book where soon I won't be able to stop till the tears have fallen and my spirituality renewed and, and what else I don't know...but I'm nervous - in any event, with this in mind, I find myself reminiscing over my time here, in the world Muggles aren't readily aware of- I think of a range of individuals; in no order they rise like members of an old life - from Professor Sprout to Dean Thomas, to Harry, to Fleur, to Bill, to Ginny when she couldn't speak around Harry, to Sirius, Dobby (sigh), Lupin, Filch, James & Lily, Albus...etc. etc. etc. I see them as a memory, so vivid I can remember their voices and how they grew in height and their hair and the questions I had/have about their personal lives - I can almost smell them walking by, or hear the fire in the Gryffindor common room, hear the crack of disapparition and then understand what follows that crack - the rubber tubing, the suffocation, the release during apparition. I hear parseltongue, I hear the song of the Pheonix beautifying my sadness, the cold wind to Hogsmead, the thick dust in the Shrieking Shack, etc. etc. etc. etc....all good books are like this. Certain memories even ignite the fear I felt at the time - like a literal PTSD.

"The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."

Year's One through Four are very different than Year's Five through Seven. Year Seven almost stands by itself, else is part of Year Six. The ending of Year Four is when everything switches. Year seven is close to done, tears have been shed and nerves have been rattled. It's not melodramatic, it's good writing. This is the slightest bow to a series that I can't express enough about - beyond the writing - for what it did for me, for the time in my life it was with me; such a time of evolution. But God has a funny way of being a part of our lives, in all things, and giving things to us which He knows suit our tastes - teaching us as we go; like medicine in peanut butter to a dog - but obviously more refined. I really hope people are able to give themselves this gift. To allow themselves to sink into the series and let the world become part of their memory; I am glad I was supported to traverse it (eventually I began chasing it) - I'm glad for it awakens an incredible part of our spirits and so our overall beings - and it's an incredibly important part. It lights a fire I won't tell you about, but it's an ancient magic one can only learn about themselves before giving to others.

Pretty Wings

Just ran across this. Like it....as the day progresses I'm growing to really like - in time it could be love. We'll see. It's just wonderful though, I've had it on repeat most of the day. Very dig.

An Inside Account of the Shady Side of Modeling

A five-year project filming the lives of model Sara Ziff and her friends is now a documentary called Picture Me, which premieres after the close of New YorkFashion Week tomorrow. We spoke with one of the models, Sena Cech.

Ziff and the other models who appear in the film worked on some of the biggest campaigns in fashion: Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. Sena Cech started modeling at 17. A bed of roses it wasn't. On one shoot, a notoriously sleazy photographer had his assistant ask Cech for a painful sounding hand job: "Sena, can you grab his cock and twist it real hard? He likes it when you squeeze it real hard and twist it."

Cech spoke with us from her Oregon home where, besides going to school, producing fashion shows and her own clothing line, she's also raising a young daughter named Naia.

The film isn't short on awful stories from fashion models. What's one story from your time working in the industry that stands out?

I was invited to a Christian Dior party in Paris, and I got drugged there. It was a big party on Avenue Montaigne, and there were a lot of people. I thought, "Oh my gosh, John Galliano is going to see me." It was a small bar, really crowded and the line was like ten miles long. So some guy just handed me a bottle of champagne. I drank some and he disappeared. Soon after I felt really sick and had to run for the door. I ran out into Avenue Montaigne and cars were coming at me, but all I could see were flashing lights. I just knew I needed to get into a cab and out of there. Luckily someone who was working the door pulled me onto the sidewalk.

Did you share stories with your friends, and were they being put in similar situations?

Yeah. My roommate in Italy was date raped at a party and she would have to see this guy out all the time. Not everyone wants to come out with these stories. Maybe you don't ever want anyone to know that you got date raped. I mean, I can be getting roofied at the Dior party. It was all just denial.

What about on shoots? Can you recall some of the working conditions?

I was working for Air France Magazine, and my agency calls me and says, "One of our girls had an allergic reaction midway through a shoot and had to go." They told me she'd gotten hair in her eyes while they were cutting her bangs. They said "Get down there!" It was really weird when I got there. So they do my hair and makeup. Then the photographer was shooting and he's using a UV flash, and it burned the first six layers of the whites of my eyes. Six cell layers. It even burned the assistant's arm.

After the shoot is finished, I'm rushed to the hospital and the other model was already there being treated for burns. For three hours I worked on that shoot while the girl who went before me was being treated in the hospital. They knew what had happened to her and they still had me work. I get there they put ointment on and taped my face shut. They asked me, "Do you have anybody you can call? The agency is closed. No one's coming for you."

My friend brings me home, I'm blind, and he had to feed me for two days. After taking the bandages off I had to wear dark glasses and carry an umbrella. It took two months to heal, so I ask, "Where's my worker's comp?" They said, "We don't sue each other in France."

Good Lord. Where was your agency in all of this?

They would set these things up. I went to work in France once and this famous photographer who I'd been put in bad situations with before was there, too. He booked me for dinner through my agency. They told me, "Oh this is your chance to make up. Can't you go to dinner with him? Others girls from the agency will be there." I agree to go and he's trying to make out with me at the table in front of everyone at the restaurant. I still don't think he even knew my name. He just called me 'Blondie.'

Who at your agency was facilitating this stuff?

At my agency, the new faces booker. He took care of the teenage models and worked nights as a club promoter. He'd say, "After work you should come out to dinner with me, we'll invite like 20 girls from the agency…" And [the models would] all trust him. They'd get everything for free and they'd get really drunk. 15-year-old girls.

I mean, my booker would book me for dinner with somebody influential from the industry just because he wanted to have dinner with a hot chick. The modeling agency would double as a dating agency. They'd say "When you're out with him you can show him your stuff." On time this guy picks me up and I'm starving. He says "I just want to stop at this hotel and have some champagne." So we drink like a bottle of champagne. Then he says "I need to go back and change," and we end up in his hotel room. Pretty soon he comes out in just his bathrobe and I was like "oh, shit." Then I couldn't find my shoes, because he had hidden them so I couldn't leave. I see one of my shoes that he had kicked under the bed. He hid my shoes! I grabbed one of them and just ran. My agency put me in these situations.

They never protected you in the slightest.

No. They'd also sometimes say, "You need to get to this place [for a shoot]. We know this guy with a private jet who would like to take you." They'd be flying you out, booking hotel rooms, booking you out for events. It was just rich guys with jets trying to get laid. The agency didn't protect us at all.

What's the biggest lesson you learned during your time as a fashion model? And what sort of advice would you offer a girl who's interested in following the same path you did?

Only trust yourself. People who say they'll take care of you are the very ones who will hurt you the most. Only trust yourself. Whatever the situation is, think for yourself.

I would hope my daughter would learn to say no. I've finally learned to say no just in the last six months. I never knew how to say it. I'm happy here. I've done so much healing. It's been a big journey for me. I'm actually going to school now, too, for naturopathic medicine. I know that this is my calling.

Picture Me opens tomorrow at Angelika Film Center in Manhattan and in Los Angeles on September 24, before opening in Europe. Here's a trailer for the film: --

http://gawker.com/5639572/an-inside-account-of-the-shady-side-of-modeling?skyline=true&s=i

It's time to Rock and Roll!!!!

The albums are here!

The albums are here!

The albums are here!

And it sounds fantastic - four years in the making, less than a year of concentrated effort. I hope, and think that you could fall in love with some of these songs. Major thanks to Waterworks Ent., Patrick Himes, Blair Smart, Marshall Norman, Wes Tirey, and Yes Master Studios, Nashville, TN.

Listen to a few online here! www.myspace.com/thefreshwater

Order a few online here! www.facebook.com/thefreshwater

Do not go gentle into that good night

Battle is a joyous thing. We love each other so much in battle. If we see that our cause is just and our kinsmen fight boldly, tears come to our eyes. A sweet joy rises in our hearts, in the feeling of our honest loyalty to each other; and seeing our friend so bravely exposing his body to danger in order to fulfill the commandment of our Creator, we resolve to go forward and die or live with him on account of love. This brings such delight that anyone who has not felt it cannot say how wonderful it is. Do you think someone who feels this is afraid of death? Not in the least! He is so strengthened, so delighted, that he does not know where he is. Truly, he fears nothing in the world!

-Jean de Brueil

French Knight, 1465

Oh my God look what I found!

Cannot.

Express.

Enough.

Excitement.

How To Get Good Perspective

Tomorrow!

So in a happy turn of events, this is coming in tomorrow!!!

I'm really hard

Trailer

Love is all you need

Sometimes I think J.K. Rowling just enjoys making me cry.

Okay, I don't really think that, but COME ON ALREADY!!

I'm so damn nervous for Year Seven.

The Hammer Speaks

"Why so hard?" the kitchen coal once said to the diamond. "After all, are we not close kin?"

Why so soft? O my brothers, thus I ask you: are you not after all my brothers?

Why so soft, so pliant and yielding? Why is there so much denial, self-denial, in your hearts? So little destiny in your eyes?

And if you do not want to be destinies and inexorable ones, how can you one day triumph with me?

And if your hardness does not wish to flash and cut through, how can you one day create with me?

For all creators are hard. And it must seem blessedness to you to impress your hand on millennia as on wax.

Blessedness to write on the will of millennia as on bronze -- harder than bronze, nobler than bronze. Only the noblest is altogether hard.

This new tablet, O my brothers, I place over you: Become hard!

Eden

A desert was behind him, his physical eyes were blinded and sharpened, his other vision became crisp, in the distance an old set of mountains and an old queen, young in age, with a new king. A bridge built from a third mountain in the same range.

He sighs, and the breeze carries his breath, opening his companions eyes. Her necklace a key, hanging loosely and swaying over smooth, but prominent collar bones; her eagle perched near both their donkeys grazing on new, fresh grass sprung up about her planted flower; her eagle, silhouetted by a glowering sun behind it.

---

She sighs and breathes him in; the air of a new mountain top, in a new range, a desert hiding an ancient bridge, and an even older tree with a man sitting at its roots; eyes closed in the dark and cold underside of the desert floor. The swirl of sand which blinded him, the intense light still whitening even the deepest browns.

He sees the city of his old kingship; he remembers the valley below and the meeting amongst fire with the queen. He sees her laughing among new kingdoms in the same mountain range and his companions eagle takes to the sky - moving violently in ascent.

---

He blinks his physical eyes, he sees the old and new mountains, he sees the sky; he smiles at the abandoned bridge, happy that a new one, more suited, has been built from different mountains in the same range, to and from his old Queen's rhythmic kingdom.

He sees the rain clouds and his companion sighs, shutting her physical eyes; her key doesn't move, but her hair pools in the shallow of her collar bones; the fondness of the sun reflecting off her lips.The mountain air is sweet, the desert wind is dancing, the valleys mist closes and opens in a slowing pattern; the Eagle soars over the old kingdom, over the burned, abandoned bridge, soars level with the queens kingdom and rises as it lets out its call.

---

A blessing like a burst of flames covers the sky and the man sighs, the breeze carrying his breath to his companions open mouth; she sighs and he breaths her in. The eagle returns, its feathers unceremoniously ablaze; a soft crackle of ceaseless fire pops as it rests, perched near their donkeys, both grazing on the fresh grass growing around their garden.

---

How Love Comes

Last year's ghosts - in 10 days!

From my sketch books - Art, circa 2008

Self portrait, during class

Page one: "Old age was a worthy adversary"

Page two: "She will say that she is the storm"

Page three: "Hindsight has gone blind"

Self portrait, after the end of class.

Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4

Well, I am not near even into this game yet, but I can tell you that I am enjoying it thus far and will most likely continue to as time wears on. It is a change of pace from the standard role playing action adventure games that I play, and the co--op is something completely awesome - though that trend is becoming the standard in gaming now and I worry that it will dilute the potency of good co-operative work as we have seen happening with the 3-D trend (also hitting gaming and television soon). However after writing thus, I might just be becoming old.

Moving on - The trip with Hagrid down Daigon Alley and into the Leaky Cauldron and Grinnots is awesome. You go to the shops and following Nearly Headless Nick around to get the lay out of Hogwarts is a charming gaming device. It has that affect on me where I want to get back and play it to see how the Lego Harry Potter characters will enact the major scenes from the books and movies. They of course do it in a completely 'Lego' way - which up until I played this game, i was unaware of though now understand the appeal of the "Lego" series of video games.

There is something playful and adorable about the characters. You never feel you are in great danger and yet there is enough anxiety to keep you wanting more - especially since you know how these things are unfolding. Skip the next part if you've never read these books...and go buy these books used.

As I learned Wingardum Leviosa and Lumos I thought about having to run into the Basilisk or Bezulbub (sp?) - I already fought the Mountain Troll and even that was initially nerve wracking because I wasn't sure of the controls. I came to find out - as is perfect for a 'children's' game' - that destroying everything with "Expelliarmus" pretty much gives you the answer you want. The puzzles are fun and being able to - and sometimes having to - toggle between the character I think maintains the spirit of the book where you don't just make friends with Harry, but you care about all of them. I will admit I was more comfortable (on the Qudditch level) playing as Hermonie versus using Ron (though him and Scabbers were helpful).

I will give a final review once I am finished with the game, but as a fan of the books, and as one with a conscious effort to be as engrossed as possible (its easy and awesome and you always want more), I can tell you that this game will probably get a great rating from me.

The negative -

Some layouts aren't very clear and the controls are clunky in part - which is kind of easy to forgive because it's amazing that Lego's can even move like that; which is a fact I knew they were hiding when I used to try and turn myself around fast enough to watch my toys playing.

Kaa-kawww!

Karan

More Amor Fati

Nothing changes. All comes around. I hated Nietzsche years ago, and his overarching death of God just makes more sense now, but his definitions I still disagree with on Theology though understand them better by his location in history and geography.

The 'Eternal Re-occurrence' - that I think he was dead right on.

Truly then, we must go through the birthing pains to become yes-sayers. To struggle through the canal and feed on extracted nutrition. To wail and moan and whine as children. I must say yes to all of it.

It has been what has led me to desire suicide - so really an escape, i.e. drugs, alcohol - for many years. And as I learn to give up on drugs and alcohol day by day - and it does get easier - simultaneously I have to learn to not hate that with all good comes attached a bad, and that with all bad comes attached a good - though seldom less recognized by our strained 'post-modern eyes'.

Then I, and we, are left with a wash. A blank emotional slate where I cannot expect either good nor bad, but truly nothing. This is not Nihilism, this is immaturity.

"Say yes. Be hard so you can create with me my brothers!" to paraphrase various times Nietzsche says these things.

I have never been able to answer the question of why we are here and simple theology is not easily adopted by me...or maybe more accurately, I am the simpleton; I do not reflect the face of Christ that brightly yet, if I may ever. I am left with the only other option thus far - which in it has the seed of the tree which sprouts a belief in God beyond words and so true faith - to rid myself of the question entirely, to simply say "yes".

---

But why? Why not just give up? why strive to keep myself alive by trying not to answer a question whose lack of answer drives me to suicidal thoughts in between my moments of pleasures? But is this not just asking the same question again! Is it still not concerned with it's own satisfaction! So does it not yet bellow, "NO!"

So you see, I/we, must say yes; for as Rumi says, "the real work is outside, digging in the garden."

I must shut down the simpletons thinking and function off the faith that the history of human wisdom tries to tell me - that there is a way to have Heaven on Earth. To become actively accepting. To become a yes-sayer and to thus be able to express my will - for what is, is still that - even when it may not seem to be. And further that as I find my will, and the will to say yes to me, that I would glean the tools to live "As you love yourself" - and so too learn the, "Love one another" - finally then reflecting Christ's face in my will, as my will expresses itself as an extension of His and so our Fathers.

"etc. etc. blah blah. Listen to the roosters crow. Ka-kaw! ka-kaw." All philosophy is an egg says the madman.