A Poem Written On A Typewriter By My Ten Year Old Cousin

ther wunts was a man named billy
and thar wunts was a man named bob
thay went to the move theter 8 7 up is cool
hi
casey likes hannah montana
vote for obama
save the poller bears
i love manatees
its so fun to
one 234 hi nock on the door- happy peapol, yaaaaaaaa
camp lazlo and chawder are cool shoes



hihihihihihihihihihihihihihi
nonononononononononono
hohohohohohohohohohoho
gogogogogogogogogogogogo



let us go

Hi, My Name Is Judy Dury

Yesterday, I had jury duty. After an incident four years ago when they did not receive my form and I was held in "contempt of court" with a five thousand dollar price tag on my head, I have carefully calculated when I would be available to serve. Even though I could not serve on a case as school is starting soon, I still made sure I was able to go for at least a day.

The system was surreal. A hundred or so jurors, each called up in groups of thirty or more and sent to far away departments on upper floors. In the jury assembly room, those not called sat separated, isolated, delving into books, magazines, or staring vacantly at the TV screen as Ben Stiller ran from a stampede of exotic animals (I believe this is a plot line in at least three, if not all, of his movies). Despite several, strategically placed "No Cell Phones" signs, people loudly complained into their mouthpieces about how they had "been there all fuckin' day and had shit to do. Shit."

I partook in the collective isolation. I was reading David Wann's Simple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle and focusing hard on the words five inches from my face. I underlined, as I do in all of my books, on particular passage that struck me:

I believe we can and must bring sanctity to our everyday lives by creating I-You relationships [as oppose to the restrictively objectifying I-It relationships], treating even the food we eat or a masterpiece painting with great respect, wonder, and connection, because the people who grew healthy food or created the painting "speak" through it. By changing the way we regard the world, the "me" in each of us becomes a much wider "we", and we feel interconnected and complete. Even in a world filled with contradiction and superficiality, we find True North.

As I read this, conversation broke the silence in the assembly room. A group of jurors had just been let out of their case and were saying goodbye to each other. They were wishing each other safe travels for upcoming trips, exchanging business cards, patting each other on the backs and shaking each other's hands. One woman said she was going to start suffering from "separation anxiety". They smiled and laughed with each other, creating some kind of weird social fishbowl into which the rest of us peered over our various reading materials.

I'm not sure if these people had found "True North", but they had found something the rest of us hadn't. And they found it without even trying (in fact, they were forced by a court of law). To edge on saccharin, it was a touching moment to see. They parted ways, leaving the room silent as it was before, and I delved back into my book.

Strange Fruit

Taken with my new Diana+ camera.

Lite Ning

For the last two nights, there have been lightning storms. Last night, I felt paralyzed by it. I arched and craned my neck to get the best view out of my window while remaining horizontal. As much as my eyes wanted to close and let the sounds of the street rock me to sleep, I kept them fixed to that silent spectacle. I started to get anxious for that fantastic cracked sky, for the electricity to split its center.

I wish my south and east facing walls were made of glass. I could live in a suspended fish bowl in order to see the lightning better.

I Put It All Together

And then had some help taking it apart.

Escape Artist

I am a planner. I live by charts and notes in the margins. I adore order and detest disorganization. So one of the challenges of the Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities has been to let some of this anal retentivity go. To let creativity and spontaneity take over. My original project included my research partner and I going into the Jacob Lawrence Gallery and putting up a previously written poem on different parts of the space with stencils. When stencils were thrown out, we decided to wing it, throw out convention when it comes to writing poetry, and just see where the space takes us.

Needless to say, the three days we had to do this were very, very important days.

Beginning Friday afternoon, we started construction on the first movement of the poem. I mapped out the scale and structure of the piece on a large wall an started painting. Most of my day was devoted to clean brush strokes and staying out of the way of other people in the gallery.

Saturday was to be demanding. My research partner and I were supposed to meet at 11:30, get in the space, and "create more art". He was still in Capitol Hill from the night before when 11:30 rolled around, so I headed back to my apartment.

While at my apartment, trying to regroup and re-plan, one of my very dear friends called. I have not seen her in six months, and it will be another month and a half before I see her again. Thanks to the miracle of Facebook and free cell phone talk time with people in your network, we have been able to keep in touch. We have one of those relationships where there is no starting over, no matter how long we've been apart. Time or distance has never played a role in our friendship.

She called with very sad news that I do not feel appropriate to divulge here, as it is her personal business. What I can say is that no one her age should have to go through this. I tried my best to comfort her over the phone, mentally taking her into my arms as we have done for each other in the past.

She remained on my mind the rest of the day. I was thinking about her situation when my research partner threw up outside of my car and then asked me to drive him home. When the design professor asked me to paint over the poem on the wall and consider printing it out on paper instead. When I was in the studio until 12:30 in the morning, still tracing and cutting out words on tissue paper.

I used the space as inspiration for the piece, but also as an escape. I feel so incredibly grateful to have this opportunity to work in a gallery, to be a student of the arts, to create my own little corner of the world. The process gave me some moments to sit back a bit, collect my thoughts, reflect on how badly I wanted to make everything better for my friend. That situation is out of control. But this physical space of mine wasn't. I used my head, hands, eyes and words to shape and execute. All I could do for her was keep her in my thoughts, wish the best for her, and resolve to be there when she needs me.

Here are the results of my escape artistry:

Everything Happens for a Reason

Saturday morning, I woke up in downtown Seattle and needed to get to Capitol Hill by 11. This distance is walkable. I've done it many times. But I had a heavy backpack with me and had just spent the night in a half-sleep daze on an air mattress, so I decided to bus it. My plan was also to get to the cafe early to get some work done on my research project.

I got to the bus stop, looked at the timetable, and saw that the bus was due to arrive at any minute. Because of my previous experience with Seattle Public Transportation, I believed the timetable. When the bus didn't come for ten minutes, I thought, "Oh well, maybe there was a mistake. The bus will come eventually, I just have to be patient." Twenty minutes later, as the clock inched closer to 11, I was in that weird in-between time where I could have walked and been late or taken the bus and been on time. "Oh, I'll just wait. It's bound to show up. It's been forty five minutes already." At around 11:10, I was thinking, "Screw you, Seattle Public Transportation. How DARE you?! After years of loyal patronage and bragging about how MY city's public transportation system is better than YOURS, THIS is how you repay me?!?"

So I started walking. I was supposed to meet some friends on the very end of Capitol Hill at a cafe. While walking, I saw a bus that went in vaguely the same direction I was going, so I hopped on. It then veered off the path I wanted in front of another cafe I frequent. My friends called me to find out where I was and told me they would just drive down and meet me there. So we met at said other cafe, whose upstairs seating, wifi, and soy on the bar make up for the absolutely awful music the baristas choose to play.

Coffee with friends went well. I calmed down a bit and felt better. After a twelve ounce americano, my friends said goodbye and I decided I needed a bang trim. I started walking in the direction of the salon, past a handful of stores on the 500 block of Pine. I glanced sideways into the window of Spine and Crown, a used book store, and stopped short. There, displayed in the window, was The Literary Criticism of Marshall McLuhan.

Now, to some, okay, most everyone, the compiled essays of Professor McLuhan concerning the works of Joyce, Pound, and Poe that "embrace the whole continuum of human experience that [goes] into the art of printed creation and that [goes] on in the aesthetic assumptions and psychological biases of the reading public" doesn't mean much and certainly isn't very "cool". But this book is exactly, exactly what I need for my research project. I had never even heard of the name Marshall McLuhan before this summer's Institute, and now here he was, writing about books and authors I love, circling around a subject I am focusing on in my research. I rushed in and bought it, exclaiming to the booksellers how they made my day. Strike that, my life.

And had I not waited for the bus, gotten angry, decided to walk, taken that other bus, and been dropped off at secondary cafe, I would have never found it.