snow and cold adventures

So I didn't go to Minnesota. Even in my last-ditch-effort to enroll anyone I could see myself not killing in a 22 hour (I lied and told them 18 at the time) drive to THE ADVENTURE OF OUR LIFETIMES!, I am currently in my warm home instead of on the iced over lake with Mary, Molly, Amber, and Lily. I was incredibly enticed by the promise of beards, storytelling, friends, ice-huts, artists, epic adventures, Minnesota-ins, but in the end couldn't make it there. In Mary's words, "It's just magical here Aliya, it's just magical."

So I brought Minnesota to me here in Massachusetts. I ate beans out of a can which I tried to cook directly on the fire (stove), and pretended to be very cold (because my house mates wouldn't let me open all the windows). I was going to sleep in a fort in the living room tonight, but instead I'll retreat to my bedroom. Faraway Frozen Friends, I am thinking of you warmly, and I hope we are reunited soon in a new sort of ridiculous location.

band practice

Have you heard about that new band? "Let's Be Friends"? They have this really sweet sound, and it's a pretty interesting story too. Yeah, the girl who put it together doesn't even really play any instruments or anything -- she just pretends. Yeah, it's kinda like an art project or something weird. But I think they might make it somewhere. It sounds kinda fun at least.

You heard right! "Let's Be Friends" is off to a great start. We have Will on the guitar, Taryn on the theremin, Elizabeth on the homemade-percussion, Phoebe on vocals, Micah on the harmonica, Allison on the spoons, and Aliya on the mini-xylophone. We are starting with a cover of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "Stand By Me".

Not to be totally dorky, but it was really quite amazing to come to practice and realize that people had actually practiced, and that we were actually playing these songs (in some garbled manner) together. Being in a band totally rocks. Hopefully I don't get too caught up in the idea of it to forget to practice.

january hibernation

I guess January is officially over. I always get a little sad when January's over, because then it means my birthday's over, and also it means that I don't get to write the upper-case cursive "J" everyday for a while now. Maybe that doesn't make much sense, but I just really love writing upper-case cursive Js. This year, the end of January means LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS FOR REALZ NOW.

I came back to campus and had a minor crisis almost immediately. What am I doing? What does this all actually look like? Am I actually being collaborative? Am I actually making worthwhile art that makes a difference and changes the world? I followed Greg around for a few nights in the art barn, asking him to really dish it to me, and really tell me what he thought. And I had to look at my projects from last semester and really think about if they were successful or what I wanted to be doing. So many of them relied on other people caring about my project as much as I did. I relied on my friends showing up at the last minute and participating. My hand as an artist wasn't there as much, and I was almost too vague or open-ended in my attempts to make everything open and available for personal interpretation.

So I was left with the question of control and authorship -- do I really have to chose between being a collaborative artist and being a "normal" artist? If I am presenting my own project, am I lying to myself saying that I'm being egalitarian and open to others' ideas? Am I still collaborating if I'm actually controlling?

Down to basics: what do I actually want to be doing? I want to make a difference. I want to create spaces to get outside of our machinery, create places to interact and be extraordinary. I want to create spaces for new understandings of each other, for stories to be told which would otherwise never be heard.

From all this over-thinking I came up with a new idea that brought my work together and had a clear focus, clear path and conclusion for the next few months. I will be creating an imaginary world, a place that viewers enter into and are asked to engage with. They move through the different rooms of this world and participate in different ways with different "mini-projects" set up. Each will ask the viewer to think about homes, being at home, who is included, excluded, and if we can make homes anywhere. How can we be lonely in a filled-up-world of together?

I'm really excited about this. It feels really right. I have been speaking with and writing to so many people and friends and mentors in my life and this project is growing and changing and real. It feels good to take authorship of the project, and just declare it as my own, but also know that it is way bigger than myself, and that I need others around me supporting me in order to make it happen. I am creating a team to make some amazing things happen -- and the best part is that they are so excited too. It's like all I had to do was ask confidently and concretely, and suddenly so many people in the world are rising up to stand right next to me and make my visions reality.

so that's what I've been up to all January. Lots of lists and plans and computers. Which makes me very suspicious of myself. I could get lost in my lists. I use lists to put off actually doing anything. And now it's February. So I guess it's time to start doing things!

I started with some stuffed animals. From a big bag I have had sitting in my studio I started cutting up the most horrible ones. I cut out little windows into the bodies and then filled them with things -- a chestnut I picked up in Montreal when Elizabeth and I went there last year, shells Tessa and I used to collect from the beach at home, a toy dinosaur from an art project first year, a glitter-y rock from a scavenger hunt in high school. Mom, can you please send me the rest of the sentimental junk that's lying around my room? thanks.

go go go go...

as if you hadn't seen enough lists and maps...

lots of floating ideas, thoughts, lists, plans....

ALSO: potential future site....?

ALSO: I am officially 22 years alive on this 22nd day of January. Last year was pretty incredible, but here comes one of my best years yet. 22 is my favorite number twice, it's divisible by 11, it is composed of the only number that is prime and even, and it's really pretty to write.

more updates soon. (including news of the up-and-coming new radio sensation homegrown music sensation featuring yours truly!)

superheroes have personal assistants

Someday, I would like to have an incredible assistant that writes response emails for me describing me in the third person and is really nice about it too.

We will meet someotherday, Ms. Miranda July.

Sincerely,
Mz. A

New Year's Revolution

"A new year is approaching. Perhaps in the past you have created New Years' Resolutions. I know I have. Aren't they usually just a way to notice the things we don't like about our lives and then hope an artificial dose of willpower will make the difference down the road?

How will 2009 forever alter your life and the world in which you live? I'm not interested in the by whens or the milestones or the structures you will put in place. What I do want is your your heart and soul. I want to hear you speaking YOUR truth, YOUR passion, creating the life that YOU have always dreamed about. I want you to remember that you are a beautiful, magnificent, unique expression of what is possible in the world and my desire is that everywhere you go, you drip all over everyone you meet so they get a taste of the extraordinary universe you have invented.

Anyone want to join me in a Revolution?"

(words by Gary Pinsky of the San Francisco TMLP)

***

I am the possibility of radiant joy and passion.

This is my year of love, community, creative explosion, inspiration, full self-expression and acceptance. This year I am fully self-expressed, out of my range, extraordinary, inspired beyond my fingers, taking chances and jumping when I'm scared, finding a place for myself and my art in this world right now and in this community, inspiring everyone around me and igniting their passions and excitements, working in a team, and being empowered on a team.

florida florida florida

Florida Florida Florida is my home.

I was going to do this big post with pictures and explanations of everything Floridian, to educate (and gloat) those in the North, who are currently very cold. But I kept forgetting to take a camera out with me, and all other excuses etc. So, I will condense this post to three of my favorite parts of Florida, acknowledging that there are many other parts I love, and more importantly people I love who happen to be located in Florida. But for now, I will focus on STARFRUIT, BETHLEHEM, and THE BEACH.

Starfruit






















are really incredible fruits. Not that I'm an expert, but I've eaten quite a few. They are officially called "Carambola". They taste like starfruit. Which, when attempting to pathetically describe with words, might be called a cross between a pear (crisp/soft texture and flavor), a melon (watery-ness), a pineapple (tropical flavors), and a weird star-shaped thing.

When I see these in the grocery store (even in Florida but especially up north), I laugh condescendingly. I'm sorry, but these are the fruits that you really need to eat off the tree (or near by) because they should be ORANGE or a nice SAFFRON color, and they are incredibly sweet. You should either eat them like corn-on-the-cob, eating one section at a time, if you're in a hurry, or for their ideal presentation, slice them through their cross sections to make star-shapes. Take that martha stewart! Nature wins again!

This year, we found a perfectly formed 6-sided starfruit (they're usually 5-sided). It was our Jewish-Star Fruit.

POST SCRIPT:: My friend Kate just told me that she once had starfruit flavored lip balm. DOES ANYONE KNOW WHERE I CAN FIND THIS??!?! This is a find that must be re-found.

Bethlehem



(note that the last picture was taken by sneakily climbing a ladder and peeking over the top of the walls. it's not in it's full glory, but you can get a small idea of what it was like...)

is actually not located in Florida. BUT! Luckily for us, a piece of it is transplanted (almost) every year for our perusing pleasure. The church down the street puts on a VERY exciting and elaborate recreation of everyone's favorite destination. What seems like the whole church comes out and wears costumes and performs in a multi-room, suspense-story version of the night that baby Jesus was born! You are first greeted by the three wise men, who give you a scheckle, and tell you that someone special was born tonight. Then you meet a sheapard who tells you a brief version of the story (of Mary getting pregnant? Actually now I don't quite remember). Then the Roman guards are very mean! They scrutinize you and ask you if you've seen a baby, and then when no one says anything, they let us in but only after you give them your scheckle and then sign the census. Then! The rabbi tells you some more story (maybe it's bad that I actually don't remember what the stories were they were telling us)! and then you enter the Marketplace! and everyone wants to sell you things, but you've already given away your scheckle (one time my brother Sam kept his scheckle and didn't give it to the census. Then, he tried to buy a basket from one of the marketplace people. They didn't know what to do.)! And then the hebrew school (They are reading a scroll with hebrew, and when we looked in one year, they were reading it upside-down. But I appreciate the attempt to use real hebrew text!)! and then you get to the Inn. This is the best part. The same guy plays the inn keeper each y scheckle ear I've been. He's really good. He whispers, "do you want to see the babe? The woman came in, large with child, and I could not refuse her, even though I had no more rooms left." And then you pass by two angels who are standing so still, and then there's sometimes real animals (one year a donkey) with a sometimes real baby (one year it was a doll) and a mom! It's really all pretty great. Sam and I went all three nights in a row the last year they had it.

Unfortunately, it ended the night I arrived this year. So I missed it. By half an hour. I missed my opportunity to visit Bethlehem. However, it is still one of my favorite parts of Florida.


The Beach


is a great place to wear a bathing suit. I fully appreciate Florida and its beaches. So great, that all marine life travel down to get a swim too! Which means that when you're a human, you have to fear for jellyfish, man-o-war (baby jellyfish or cousins or something jelly-fish-like), sea lice (little bugs that burrow into your skin -- but only where your bathing suit is luckily), and I always fear for sharks, but I think that's not necessary really.

I spent one of my days at the beach poking the man-o-war because they are SO BEAUTIFUL and WEIRD! they are like blue blobs with pink little spikes that look like bubbles but actually they're skin! and then they have these incredible jelly-fish-like tentacles or squiggles underneath that they use to lure you into their beauty and then STING you! I was poking one of these and then this kid came up to me and told me to scoop it up with their bucket, cause they were making a holding tank over there to save all the beached man-o-war. We brought it over and so now we had two dead man-o-war (men-o-war?) floating in a little pool of water surrounded by sand walls. it was great.

Not to rub it in too much, but I spent December 30 on the beach and it was perfect.

One Thing That is Stressful About Home
[not pictured]
the tons tons tons of stuff piled up in my room (nicely, neatly, seemingly benign) that encompasses years of memories and collected things and lists and broken bits that cannot be thrown away but have no use. Whole bags of pens that are "sentimental". A stack of calculators (that are no longer usable). clothes I never wore but they have a story, and must be kept. the cement hat I made. art art art. Leaving Hampshire in the spring will be a nightmare of cleaning and throwing away. I hate throwing anything away.


SOOOOOO. Now I am returning back to Massachusetts. I'm excited! So many exciting things are happening this year! January's gonna rock, and then spring is going to be just awesome, and then I graduate and then I'm off into the real world! where REALLY awesome things happen!

(I just heard that the temperature on the ground (I'm writing this in the airplane) is 21 degrees. AHHH! MA here I come! Don't be too cold on me!)
(p.s. I'm in MA now... and I'm cold.)