random things posted by imani , Friday, March 11, 2011 at 9:00 AM, in Labels: freefall

that make me feel one of the three (or all at the same time): alive, sane, preoccupied.

• metal puzzles - i am so into these things that i find myself scouring bookstores to no end just to see if they have any new puzzles for sale
• carson's 'the autobiography of red' (about done with the book and it is delicious)
• poetry - reading and/or writing
• ackerman's 'origami bridges'
• cleaning my shelf
• trying to keep everyone else updated by writing on my blog again
• pain (masochistic!)
• the notion of getting another tattoo
• saving up for my laptop
• 17 more to go (of what - i will reveal in the opportune moment)
• painting flowers again
• the mosquitoes under my study table that just won't quit
• lie to me
• re-reading carson's 'eros the bittersweet' (yes, the book that inspired me to put up a blog)
• wrapping my books
• getting a new set of sticker bookplates
• the idea of you
• the want to experience even just a semblance of peace
• so proud of my nephew angelo being so smart - he solved one metal puzzle that has been baffling me
• the destruction in japan, as read on yahoo.com earlier - i pray that we all do what we can to help any which way possible
• losing my office id - i don't like the process i'd have to go through to secure another one
• miller's 'tropic of cancer' - piece of advise: read this after nin's 'the delta of venus'
• photography
• portraits of you
• you are all i can see behind the lens
• the hope that you will soon see things from my end
• just recently started 'learning' poker. a few weeks later i got myself my own poker set.
• the difference of green and olive green
• going someplace else

the things we tell ourselves posted by imani , at 8:28 AM, in Labels: freefall

• that it is okay to be too much of ourselves in any and all given situation
• that it is okay to impose our bent and broken beliefs because that is what makes us who we are
• that it is all right to not compromise, because that would break the rule we have about being just who we are
• that it is all right to do as we have always done and because trust that people will eventually come around and see things from our perspective
• that it is no problem to do as we please because we are not guilty of anything
• that it is no problem for our current lives when we get so entangled with our previous lives

these things are crawling under my skin. and the blood-loving being in me tells me there's no greater pleasure than when i inflict pain upon myself. i am masochist, what can i do? but it does not and will never mean that i wouldn't know when to stop, or when to simply let things go.

however, let me share with you my peace: i will take this as far as i could. as i have done for ages. as i have done in the hopes that love and faith will soon take over darkness.

landslide posted by imani , at 7:54 AM, in Labels: freefall

it's a long time coming for the landslide to cease. though now it feels like it has been ages - for whatever it is worth, i hope you know that nothing would make me forget the moments i was able to call you my own.

i hope you have forgiven me for all the hurt i caused you. and i hope you know that they were brought about not by the lack of love or faith but by my own impetuousness, my own lack of understanding.

i hope you are happy, as we all should be, as you have said it yourself, things happen for a reason and it wasn't because we didn't have any more reason to stay together, it was just the road to take. and though we do not speak with each other, i am filled with the hope that even when we only see each other now in the fragments of our memories, i still make you smile, and such feeling is enough to make you realize there is more good there than bad.

the black swan posted by imani , at 7:23 AM, in Labels: something else

Earlier this morning, I was driven by the lack of better things to do to reach for a DVD that has been sitting on my shelf for as long as I could remember.

After weeks and weeks of wanting to see it but never finding the time to watch it I finally saw
The Black Swan, the title character which Natalie Portman hauntingly embodied – the same role that bagged her all the major awards this year – including the much-coveted Academy Award for Best Actress.

The movie was directed by Darren Aronofsky, whose previous accomplishments included The Fountain and Requiem for a Dream.

The film was opened by the scene where the artistic director of the New York Ballet company telling young, eager dancers that his new version of the Swan Lake would need a new lead, in the hopes of making the new season’s presentation ‘real’ and ‘visceral.’

We then catch a glimpse of Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), her face lighting up, dreaming to land the role of the Swan Queen – she is a perfectionist, follows the routines rigidly but Thomas (played by Vincent Cassel) feels unsure if she can pull off the darkness and rage of having to play both the White Swan and the Black Swan. Determined to be a cut above the rest, she does her pirouettes until her toes bleed and her nails crack, she self-mutilates (perhaps to silence the voices in her head), she eats nothing less than a halved citrus and sticks her finger inside her mouth so she could vomit what she has just consumed. Nina looks frail and undernourished – and as the film progresses we begin to understand what these physical tortures did to her mind.

Nina is trapped in a claustrophobic apartment she shares with her Mommy Dearest, Erica (Barbara Hershey), trapped in the idea that everything must be done with precision, with no unmeasured line or curve to be taken, otherwise, she cannot fit in the cookie-cutter world she lives in.

As she ascends to stardom, Nina slowly loses her mind to paranoia and gets distracted by seduction and conflicting desires. She delves into the blackness of her own soul so she could keep the role and so she could live up to her own expectations. She uses dancing as an escape but then the movie transports us to this slow and painstaking metamorphosis of a talent dying for the love of ballet while trying to discover what freedom could do for her.

I grew up in a family that likes to listen to music of all genres. I know that Peter Tchaikovsy wrote the demanding classical ballet The Swan Lake. Now, I vividly remember the jumps in the notes and the intricate play of instruments to define and differentiate Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece. The Black Swan is in itself an achievement of bright minds doing the best they could to master their craft, but I would have to say that the classical version is not as deadly shocking and serious.

Though the film had in it a number of computer-generated effects to give us an idea of the troubled and wicked mind Nina has, I am still convinced that nothing in it felt mechanical. I did not see the apparent shift in scenes and dialogues, there were no cuts in the frames. All felt like a flowing, continuous elegy.

It is an art-house triumph, with two of Hollywood’s geniuses (Portman and Aronofsky) polishing the already beautiful – making it as unforgettable as our own personal episodes of obscurity and clarity, our own battle to do more good than bad, our own misery to have darkness be defeated by light.

denying posted by imani , Monday, March 7, 2011 at 9:53 PM, in Labels: ars poetica

i invite you to take me higher,
to wallow in the greatest of depths
with me, to defy any and all
known measures of time and dimensions

of infiniteness, but what do they
mean without your color, without
your trace, my thoughts falter
to define the loss and the space

and now could only design
a vague sense of neglect ~
of the words i could have uttered

but chose not to, of blood that
lets your affiction cut too deep,
denying me of my peace.

suddenly posted by imani , at 9:49 PM, in Labels: ars poetica

disappointment suddenly takes
shape in murmurs and starving
silences of your heart and mine
my thoughts devour the urge to

hold your hand and instead
replaces it with a grasp, a clutching
of a familiar cloth, my own skin
and this will be the way

until it understands your cause
and your reason, my spirit fragile
from the breaking of voices,

allowing your stares to lacerate
that which exists, even tat which
does not, walking away from a battle.

the wisdom of nelly furtado posted by imani , at 9:23 PM, in Labels: freefall

if not for work tonight, i would, most emphatically stay up the entire afternoon to conjure more things to discuss and rant and babble about.

a couple of weeks ago, i got myself a black tickler, something i could use to take note of ideas i would want to put on my blog. i so far have filled a couple of pages and i couldn't be any more delighted...or relieved. whichever comes first.

i always second guess myself so i really didn't think i'll come up with such a list. it fills me with awe and hope. that even when the daily demands of family and work get me too exhausted (for the most part!) to write, i know it just takes an hour or something of silence and i'll re-discover that the passion and fire has not waned.

and the more i see the less i grow

the fewer the seeds the more i sow

try by nelly furtado

gestalt posted by imani , at 9:07 PM, in Labels: freefall

today feels so 'random.' or maybe it's just me. or maybe this time i can fall back to my usual 'excuse' that work keeps me from doing what i love.

i did not know how to begin. i was seriously considering flipping through the pages of my dictionary (a graduation present i was given when i was in grade school) and pointing at a word that might make it a little easier for me to start today's post.

then i remembered the term 'gestalt,' which, in the simplest way would mean 'patterns.'

the last few months, or year, depends on when you started reading felt exactly just like that. it is breathing and living with patterns. the rise and fall of thoughts and curiosities. the upward and downward motion of feelings and insanities.

don't get me wrong. there is nothing i would love more than to keep this blog looking hectic, but that's precisely it! my life has been inexplicably hectic. you know how i am. i have this penchant for reading 2-3 books at the same time. i would usually stop and pick up a different material when i find the other one becoming tasteless and bleak.

and if i am not reading, i am probably having coffee, which includes conversations that stretch from 'here' to 'there,' which of course i would not just give up. if not for reading, coffee and conversations i would be...asleep. weird habits and lifestyle.

right now, i find myself sitting alone, with a miserable view of my shelf and my books collecting dust. despite the horror and pain of seeing what i am seeing right now, there is no experience quite like having a room for yourself, surrounded by the most beautiful stories and poems ever written, trying to argue with your demons and constantly challenge your limits.

i am imani.