Rainy Day in Amherst

Music by Jeff Pianki.

Rain by the sky gods.

Documentation by me.

p.s. My inner geek has been nudging me to start watching Doctor Who. There are 40 seasons. I need to know if this is worth it...

My Room is Beginning to Feel Like a Bear Cave

1. In regards to the second Percy Jackson book, which I read in the past couple days, I believe this photograph speaks for itself:

However, it did dawn on me that this series has literally the exact same plot as Harry Potter. But hey, gotta love young adult fantasy... It's the peanut butter and fluff sandwich of the literary world.

2. In the two semesters I have been here at Hampshire, I have only been awake for weekend brunch once or twice. Then, this weekend, I made it two days in a row. I consider this achievement to be a huge step in the general productivity of my life. Please ignore the fact that weekend brunch is open until 1:00 PM. If we too closely ponder this fact, the legitimacy of my achievement might be slightly overshadowed by the pitiful fact that I consider waking before one a significant feat. However, lets just pretend that arising triumphantly at the early hour of 12:30 is akin to winning a battle of one against ten thousand men. With this mindset, banana chocolate chip muffins and scrambled eggs are the foods of champions.

3. I have had a serious craving for board games lately (I know, man, I live on the edge). Unfortunately, I have no board games in my possession. Monopoly is at the top of my list, closely followed by Scrabble, and perhaps Life. Or N*Sync trivia games (*cough23cough*). If you have any of these delights, we should seriously get a game night going.

Love,

GennaRose

The Fight Against Productivity

I am growing more and more terrible at keeping up with this blog. Dastardly!

It's Wednesday, which means slam was last night. At least four different people asked me to send them poems I read at the open mike, so that was really nice. The "feature" yesterday was the first round of the National Poetry Slam qualifying competition. I didn't compete because I want to live in Brattleboro this summer instead of Amherst (NPS is in August, and the team practices all summer), but next year I probably will. Regardless, the show last night was great, and the team is going to kick some ass no matter who gets in.

My 31/31 March poetry project is going alright-- a good deal of utter goop is dribbling out of my brain, but a few things I like, too. I think I'm just running out of immediate inspiration. My recent technique has been to go on StumbleUpon and write a poem about whatever photograph pops up first, but that can only work so many times.

Thus, I would be endlessly grateful for any prompts you, my darling readers, might want to offer me.

On a related note, I have been spending (or wasting, depending on your personal opinion) a lot of time looking at photography on the internet. Because I obviously have nothing better to do, like, for example, schoolwork, writing poems, getting a life, etc, etc. I also just really miss doing photography, and would very much like to do a photo shoot in the near future. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at home (Mom, it's in my room, in the case. Bring it to me when you visit?).

Anyway, here are some images I've liked in my time consuming interweb perusals:

So yes. Those are nice. Other nice things include:

-HAND ME DOWNS. Because I got a whole bag of em from Cass and Emily. And I'm so damn excited!

-Tony Hoagland, whose book Donkey Gospel I just finished reading for poetry workshop. He is a beautiful poet, immediately rocketed to the top of my favorites list. If you haven't read anything by him, you have to. As proof of this, I showed my mother (who titles herself "poetically impaired") one of his poems, and then throughout the next few hours kept catching her reading the book. Willingly. Because she actually liked it. That's a big deal. So yeah. He's the bomb.

-(500) Days of Summer, which I watched again while I was home. Oh Joseph Gordon Levitt, how I love you and your pretty smile. And I have decided that I would be deliriously happy if I could dress like Zooey Deschanel's character all the time for the rest of my life:

My goodness there are a lot of pictures in this entry. OUTA CONTROL.

...I need to go do some actual, productive work.

Until next time,

GennaRose

Never Underestimate a Dinoshark

It's spring break, and I'm back home to good ol' Brattleboro, Vermont. Yesterday, I got to spend most of the day with my buddy Marty Cain who I haven't seen in months, and then I headed over to my friend Shannon's house, as it was her birthday and such an event merits a doozy of a celebration. So we ate a lot of food, as is often a popular way to commemorate the anniversary of anything whatsoever.

I must say, the gift I made her is without a doubt my proudest creation of all time. I bought a game of Guess Who?, and replaced all of the faces with pictures of our friends and various things we laugh about. It came out pretty kick ass, if I do say so myself (it's better in person).

After a few rousing rounds of Guess Who? Shannon Ward Edition, we decided that naturally, the best thing to do would be to watch a B-Movie entitled Dinoshark. This, my curious readers, is Dinoshark:

Reviewing this film may be difficult for me, simply because my immense passion for it will likely blind me (both figuratively and literally) and make it difficult to write a review void of bias. So instead I will just highlight a few of the most noteworthy moments:

-The Dinoshark leapt into the sky and took down a CGI helicopter. Unfortunately, the actors didn't seem as impressed as we were. Or shocked. Which seemed odd seeing as their characters just witnessed Dinoshark tackle a giant airborne machine into the ocean, but hey, that could have been a conscious character choice... Sure...

-The lead female character was on her computer, researching what in the hell this giant dinosaur/shark creature could possibly be. When she discovered through this research that it was in fact a Dinoshark, she stared horrified at the screen and then ripped off her shirt. With absolutely no explanation.

-Dinoshark always goes for the jugular.

-Despite the fact that Dinoshark had been killing many, many people, and the authorities knew about this, there seemed to be no shark warning whatsoever. Meaning games of water polo played by thirteen year old girls went on as scheduled. THAT went well...

And a bonus tidbit:

-After Dinoshark ended, a film entitled Dinocroc began. However, the two films somehow seemed to have absolutely nothing in common whatsoever save the name and the fact that they were played one after another on SyFy (that is really not how sci-fi is supposed to be spelled, by the way...). While Dinocroc had much better production values, we found it more difficult to follow. However, that quite possibly could have been due to the gelatinous state of our minds after sitting through Dinoshark.

All in all, I oh so highly recommend Dinoshark to everyone. EVERYONE. RIGHT NOW.

Love,

GennaRose

A Fifty Degree, Blue Skied Afternoon

1.

Last night was Moustachio Bashio, aka the night where everyone at Hampshire sports a moustache and goes to a party in this moustache bearing fashion, inhabited by other moustache wearers. My moustache was drawn on with eyeliner, not the flashiest of methods but effective nonetheless. It was the variety one might expect to see on a butler named Pierre, with some extra curl for emphasis. There was much debate among the students as to what is the best strategy for facial hair application-- for example, which is preferable, the drawn on moustache or the stick on moustache? Should one choose the more formal stick on moustache, the individual risks letting it slip off while dancing rambunctiously, unless they choose to apply it with spirit gum (and no face should ever be subjected to the horrors of spirit gum if there is any feasible alternative). However, if one goes with the drawn on option, it is less realistic and runs the risk of smearing. Of course, the most pleasing of options would be to close your eyes, concentrate hard, and hope a moustache just pops out on its own. Unfortunately, no such luck.

2. I spent today exploring the woods with my friend Kelty, on a heart wrenchingly beautiful day. We wandered through the forest and to the Hampshire Tree, which now has a ladder stretching up to a perfectly human-sized nest of a space in the tree's center. It seems as if I have survived the winter, and can begin to come out of hibernation. Hallelujah!

Next, we went to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, which I have always absolutely loved (last time I visited, I met Tomie DePaola and saw the original artwork from Winnie the Pooh. I pretty much died.) On the visit today, I found out that Hampshire students get to go for free. This was possibly one of the more exciting discoveries of my young life. We made crafts in the art project room, possibly more enthusiastically than the three year olds also occupying the space. We probably worked for about two hours on our little books which were illustrated with victorian illustrations. I made a pretty fantastic little journal, which includes the following images, among many others:

3.

OSCAR NIGHT!

The Academy Awards ended just about an hour ago, and goodness do I love the Oscars. Unfortunately, I hadn't had the chance to see most of the films nominated this year-- last year I saw every best picture nominee in theaters, which made the awards quite exciting. While they were still exciting, I wasn't invested as much seeing as I wasn't sure who I was rooting for. I did know, however, that I was not rooting for Avatar, and lo and behold, it only won in the categories it deserved to win, involving special effects and such. I am pleased.

In lieu of having favorites to root for, however, I was looking at a predictions sheet that my friend Colin composed where he listed all the films nominated for every major award and calculated its chances of winning. All I can say is that next year, find out what Colin Hinckley's predictions are and place large sums of money on these guesses immediately. On the list he sent me of 11 predictions, 9 of them were exactly right, and the two that were off were each his second guess. Apparently, of the 24 awards, he guessed 20 correctly. The man has a gift.

Plus, how could one be bored with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin and their awkward, occasionally nonsensical jokes?

4.

I read Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters a few days ago. By God I love J.D. Salinger. There is really not much else to say on that matter. Just thought I needed to make that statement. Again.

Aaaaand with that, I shall say adieu and goodnight.

Oh, and a prompt.... Right...

Ummmmm

Write a piece entitled "The Plumpest of Men in the Tallest of Trees."

Love,

GennaRose

Mangoes are Ripening On My Bookshelf.

1.

Last night, I finally watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I had been planning to watch this film for years, and thank goodness I finally did-- I don't think I could have forgiven myself had I deprived my life of it any longer. If you haven't seen it yet, do immediately. It is on Netflix Play Instantly. It was hands down the best ensemble character cast I have ever seen. Each actor is absolutely brilliant, bringing poignance, depth, and a good heap of madness to every role. There was not a single weak performance in the bunch, down to the smallest parts.

Holy shit, it was great.

In the IMDB search that inevitably follows every brilliant film I see (and every fictional character I fall in love with-- that's you, Billy Babbit), I discovered this:

Billy Babbit and evil Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings are the same person! Gahhhh NOO!

This discovery broke my heart. And also greatly intrigued me. But mostly broke my heart.

2.

I have decided to write a poem every day of March. That is 31 poems in 31 days. By posting it on here, that means I have to do it. Otherwise, I'll have told everyone I will and then just end up looking like a fool if I don't follow through. SO point being, if you see me on a given day and I have not written a poem, give me a hearty slap. Hand me a pen and paper. Or just ask me what I have written lately, and then I'll get more excited about writing more.

I wrote two poems last night (one of which was about Billy Babbit; I do love my imaginary boys), so I am better than on schedule. However, that really means nothing as it is only March 2nd. But seriously. I'm going to do this. Fo realz.

Yikes...

3. PROMPT TIME

From now on, I'm just going to post writing prompts as opposed to specific questions. You can use them how you wish-- write a poem, a song, a short story, a computer science article, whatever. If you want to share them with me, that would be lovely. If not, that's cool too. I just think one can never have enough writing prompts at his or her disposal.

Prompt: Write about this image.

Love,

GennaRose