Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Moonlight Over Crazies

I know everyone has done their "cafe observations" writing but I couldn't resist. Here's mine.

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So I'm at Borders. I've been going to coffee and bookshops for years but I just noticed how many freaks there are here. For the most part, people are normal but you know, when you see one freak it makes you feel like the place is teeming with them.

The first freak actually approached me just as I sat down and asked if he knew me. "Yeah you're someones friend...an Asian girl I know. Do you know Mallory?" Look. There are no Asian Mallory's. If there were, they would probably be in their 40's now and be too sensible to associate with a twenty-something bookstore reject like you. "Nope. Don't know anyone by that name. Sorry". I keep repeating in different ways that I don't know him but he keeps persisting. After not much longer, he loses his hard-on for proving that he knows me and waddles away.

Onto Freak #2. It's this man standing about 8 feet across from me, looking at the discounted over-sized books. The first thing I notice about him is that he's got a very 90's look to him. Immensely. His hair's just long on the top and parted on the side, and VERY blond. He reminds me of that South Park episode where they find the frozen body of a man from the 90's and they create a habitat for him that plays Ace of Base all the time. This guy could actually be a member of Ace of Base. So this male Goldilocks of the 90's smiles. And that makes me notice his wide, strong, and huh? - sexy jaw. Then I realize the rest of him. He is entirely sexy. Six foot three, muscular build to the point of bulging veins, a man-ass made of round rock. Before he looked like a Scandinavian farm boy and now in my eyes he had become a Nordic god. God, he's hot.

Thor was reading a giant book about the cosmos. How fitting.

Anyway.

Then I see this really pretty girl wearing a very out of style, long, and flowy purple skirt with a black chiffon-sleeved top and strappy high heels and I think: "What the fuck is she wearing?". Then I feel bad that I'm so pretentious that I'm actually offended by a complete stranger's choice of clothes. Sigh.

The freaks march in. This one's good! A freak pairing! It's a very obvious internet meeting taking place. How do I know they met on the internet? Because when he first got here he was looking for someone in every woman he looked at, including myself, and now she's just sat down with him. Their biggest tip-off in being an internet date however, is the fact that they're so mismatched. They'd never even look at each other had they been at a bar, or party, or even....bookstore cafe. You know what I'm talking about. You've seen lots. They're the funniest! They're usually a LOT more awkward than a regular blind date.

Then a bunch of hot gay men pour in. Unassociated and unrelated gay men. It was bizarre.

Thor is sitting with his ugly girlfriend. I want to sit on his lap and ask him if he's outdated because he's out of touch or if it's because he's got too many important things to worry about.

Oh SHIT. The Man Who Knows Mallory is back. Can you believe this shit? He comes and stands next to me and yup...you guessed it..."Are you SURE you don't know me?" Yes. I don't know. Then he asks me what I'm writing and I badly want to tell him I'm writing my graduate thesis in Cultural Sociology entitled "The Absence of Asian Women Named Mallory in the 21st Century". But alas, I am not that ballsy. Then he literally just fucking stands there looking around. Next, in what turned out to be the most unfortunate event of the night, the man sitting next to me gets called over by his friend so they can leave. So Jesse (YES, he introduced himself a while ago) looks at me, shrugs and says "fuck it" and sits next to me. Yeah fuck it alright, and fuck you too.

Then there's this bitch who keeps looking up from her notepad to watch people, then lowers her head again to write...and she keeps doing this...oh wait, that's me.

Anyway, I didn't stay much longer after Thor left.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

"Art School" Is An Oxymoron

It is ridiculous to me how many institutions of creativity are in place. Schools of design offering several programs for the artistic-minded to delve into, like fashion, painting, sculpting etc. I don't mind graphic design programs where you actually have to learn something technological so you're able to do what you enjoy, but these schools I first mentioned are so obviously there just to get your money.

My childhood dream was to become a fashion designer. It probably still kinda is. I once made appointments not too long ago with two of these so-called schools. One was the more prestigious one..with a heftier price tag. The other one was supposedly not so prestigious and way less reputable but only cost about $3,000 less. At the first one, and let's just call it Le Institut Prestige, my counselor told me I would have to take a one-year "art orientation" type program to really make sure that fashion design is what I want to study. Then after I'm sure and know I want to be the next Miuccia Prada, THEN I could have the privilege of taking fashion courses for the next three years. Bee-ess. Money money money.

How do you teach someone art? How could one person instruct someone else to see something in an artistic way? I know this question is silly, because it is accomplished...err rather...attempted all the time time but when that happens, in my humble opinion, that's not art. That is actually instruction and mental conditioning done in an artistic setting. This is accomplished by the instructor *instructing* the student to look at + something that's blue by putting it next to a certain shade of turquoise which makes the original blue look purple. It's about learning the knowledge having to do with colors, sizes, and shapes and it will never be artistic. It is recycled art and when it's recycled it's just the same exact thing as writing a history report. Just information passing from one person to the next, absolutely inspiration-less.