Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

my subjects from leaute
( books, utena, fashion, writing and 'Don't go to bed. Nobody's allowed to go to bed tonight!' )
also got a new layout, banner really.

I don't know how I ended up at the jack robinson archive but while there I discovered a series of photographs featuring gloria vanderbilt and her sons carter and anderson cooper. I've always had an interest in the Vanderbilt's, a filthy rich american family rocked by tragedy and court room scandal and we can't forget the fact that a certain nightly news caster was a product of this blood line. I had originally saved these images for mcollinknight, she harbors a sweet admiration for Mr. Cooper but when i took a closer look I started to wonder if I was seeing a family lead by a distant mother and father who never fully understood their children.



( more images under the cut. )

But then again they are just photographs taken in an abhorrently decorated home. A picture may be worth a thousand words but no one can ever understand a family dynamic unless you are a member, stories are merely created by curious onlookers.


Interestingly enough Diane Arbus also photographed
( a young Anderson Cooper. )

I wondering if anyone can help me out. What I'm looking for is a website that sends out e-mail alerts for astrological events. Events like local meteor showers, when Venus come closest to the moon, you know the shit Jack Horkheimer "The Stargazer" tells you about on PBS (what a name, Horkheimer).

Any ideas?

The "baby it's cold outside" edition:

picture blogs (it's all the rage);
if charlie parker were a gunslinger - my personal favorite.

sugar and spice - sexy ladies of the 60's and 70's.

this isn't happiness - amazing images, tumblr at it's best.

retrozone - as the title suggests, retro images. NSFW.

english russia - just because something cool happens daily on 1/6 of the earths surface.

book in mouth disease - old school book covers.

cars;
hot wheels - from the creator of this isn't happiness.

art fitzpatrick's portrait of cars - classic car illustrations. pontiac, buick and others.

another road trip - a serious classic gm collection.

everything else;
it's not you, it's your books - yeah, books are a deal breaker.

star wars - retold by someone who hasn't seen it.

pan;
secret service code names - renegade is a pretty bad ass choice.

doomsday clock - we're five minutes to midnight.

new layout on maetel.hookshot.net. I had started off wanting to do a complete overhaul of plastered but I got distracted and I cant seem to find the right image for my layout section anyway, it's kinda frustrating.
It's the bomb bitches!

I took a deep breath and read the all of my old live journal entries. Perhaps I'm nostalgic or maybe I'm continuing my search from last night, going through all my paper journals looking for answers, looking for some explanation of why I've started down and continue perusing such a self-destructive path. I’ve found none, expect my written admission that I must enjoy it.
It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, I should start giving myself more credit as a writer but what I found the most interesting is what a time capsule it has all become. Inside jokes, plans made but that never came to fruition and old photos I had forgotten about. I miss the way our small group of friends would comment on each others entries, little play fights and a certain touchy someone freaking out whenever we used his real name on the internet. I should start using it more because I realized what I had been telling myself all along is true, that its just another medium to write in, who cares what others think. My voice is different here than it is in my paper journals, a bit more direct and controlled not just the romantic musings of how I love a boys hipbones, or the way the air felt different underneath his window.
In going through all the older entries I also noticed how connected to my friends I was. I would often thank you all for being there for me, for listening to my problems for being so non-judgmental and understanding. I’ve grown distant this year, or maybe I’ve been distant since retuning from Seattle, I don’t know.
But I have to say this year has been a year like no other. It was a blur, spent under the effects of alcohol (mostly) and infatuation. I’ve spent it in a permanent state of limerance and limerance is a dangerous place to be. Although my affairs with the douche bag have mostly concluded in, “What the fuck am I doing with my life?” I have to thank him. He gave me a quiet confidence, a chance to do things I never thought I’d be able to, and a subtle strut in my step. He also gave me stories. Stories upon stories shared while smoking too many cigarettes, too early in the morning. I miss who he used to be. But “Pleasant Living” got shelved. With our last ill-fated connection Robin and David seem tarnished, their friendship marred and I’ll need months, perhaps years before I can return to the creation of their lives. To All Things Must Pass (on vinyl), midnight snacks, and run down camaros.
But this year contained more than him. Reconnecting with old friends from high school, staying up late growing punchy, growing philosophical. Trying to examine each others lives since they make so little sense to ourselves. It isn’t always easy but they make it better.
I’ve grown reflective not just of this year but of the last five or so. Everything contained in the time of Pennsylvania, Washington, Chelwynd and here in Lansdowne, the house I grew up in but never really “home”. After it all I have to ask myself, What am I really looking for? Since, it seems, I’ve found nothing.
So what’s my new years resolution? I don’t really make them but this year I think I’d like to try being more open, stop telling myself I don’t have the right to feel things. I’d like to try being less private, being more open to the world around me, not giving a fuck what the rest of you think. I think I’ll try to write in live journal more and leaving my entries unlocked not only as a way to bring myself out more but as a way to bring my writing out more. I think I would like to be less shy.
5...4...3...2...1
Happy New Year!

I wish the big three survive and create modern counterparts to the ancient muscle machines. That the hum, the purr of a future American car can still cause my pulse to quicken and knees to shake. I wish we could all turn of our televisions and explore the parks and woods right down the street from us, put on a pair of creek shoes and wade in streams picking up odd pebbles and chasing after water spiders. I wish the fireflies would return to the suburbs. Girls would catch them in mason jars, mischievous boys would rip off their lighted ends and place them on each fingernail. I wish newspapers would never stop their presses and more of us would spend Sundays with ink stains on our fingers. I wish antique stores would not be pushed out of business by Internet giants and we could all be struck by a curiosity to sift through their shelves, flipping through old polaroids of unknown families that somehow mirror so much of our own. To try on costume jewelry that reminds us of our Grandmother's. Open up a good old book with worn covers, browned page edges; open it up and inhale that unique scent only acquired by time and devotion. I wish for an explosion of art; of painting, writing and film. Allow the creators, the artists to take center stage instead of Paris Hilton, Kasey Anthony or whoever is the center of the latest 24-hour news cycle scandal. I wish politics would become more of what we idealized, representatives of US who listen to each others ideas and do what is best for the country, not themselves. I wish Barack Obama can make all his promises come true. I wish we could all try to do our parts to help him, do our part in creating a truly new and good America, carrying ourselves one step closer to the world we've all imagined. I wish we could all find what we're looking for and when we do it makes us feel fulfilled and happy.

So I just wish you could come out and play for a while. There's a great big world out here and sometimes it can be really beautiful.

image heavy under the cut...

( 1 : to worship or honor as a deity or as divine 2 : to regard with loving admiration and devotion <adored his wife> 3 : to be very fond of <adores pecan pie> )

I'm almost done cleaning out my room. All thats left is whats under the bed. It's strange the things I've found hidden around my room. Wanting to forget but not quite ready to throw away; old love letters, cherry tic-tacs, and a quote in a old journal from pennsylvania that says:
"one runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed." - the little prince. This scribbled quote led me to the comfort of re-reading the entire exchange with the fox from this beautiful little book and I understand it now in a way I never have before.

( because of the color of the wheat fields. )

courtesy of mcsweeneys.

in no particular order (except the wiki links) because i'm too tired...

gallery of the absurd - cartoons of celebrities with bite.

cobrasnake - l.a. party photos. found via Cory Kennedy, the underage it girl.

conan o'brien hates your homeland.

devoutdolls - homemade dolls by sara.

thisnext - addictive shopping site, type in a keyword and find lots of goodies recommended by other browsers. such as cool vinyl wall art.

etsy - handmade wonders for sale from crafters all over the world. I even found a fairy door.

cyberden - a gaming nightclub from the looks of it in Columbia. I didnt even know this place existed.

monroe and miller - short documentary on the love and marriage of arthur miller and marilyn monroe.

gum or mints - industry artists design characters based on a theme.

modish - shopping blog with amazing finds.

secret storage books - hollowed out books that serve as nifty storage places.

owl farm blog - anita, the widow of hunter s. thompson, maintains this blog that is updated fairly often.


pan folder

the library of babel.

films based on short fiction.

wild bill hagy or "why i love baldymore, hon!"

gelert must read touching doggy story.

My favorite genre of writing is short stories, more specifically those of the American Gothic persuasion. The ones I have read are too numerous to mention but my favorites include The Rocket Man by Ray Bradbury, A Rose For Miss Emily by William Faulkner, and The Promise of America by Thomas Wolfe.

Here is the list of novels I've read, at least those I can remember. As some will notice my strong suit is American Literature of the 20th century which is my love and as anyone who has been there knows its very hard to turn attention away from true love. I do try to branch out from Sinclair, Steinbeck, Bradbury and a league of other amazing American born writers; from time to time I'll dip my toes into the classics or French literature but its hard to be gone so long from the scribes who can romanticize even the darkest parts of the land of free.


( reading is fun )

Also check out my bookshelf. I'm quite the bibliophile and searching antique stores is my favorite way to find books.