Photo Abyss

Okay, so these are a few seemingly random photos that I've snapped over the past couple of years. I am in no way a photographer by any means, but I like to play with cameras and editing like a whole slew of photography lovers and admirers do. I find these particularly interesting for various reasons. Let me know if you do, too. 

All photos copyright 2011

Poetry Under the Stairs II

Tortillas with Butter

Mornings in my Nána’s kitchen were filled
with rhythm and emotion, where everything’s
punctuated with laughter and the smell of
chorizo con papas.
“Tu tienes hambre, wedita?”
Everything in my life could have been solved
by a tortilla with butter. Like when Jeremy
told me my gap was so big it looked like
my front teeth had an argument and separated.
Sometimes bits of tortilla would get stuck
in it and I’d tickle it out with my tongue
before flooding it with sugary coffee from my
zoo mug she kept just for me.
My mother’s brothers and sisters would chatter away,
joined by spinning, clicking spoons and
the steady rhythm of my nana’s rolling pin.
They’d stop and ask me if I understood them
and I’d shy away, not wanting the spotlight.
I’d stare into the jungle that held my caramel
colored coffee and listen to the enchanting
chatterings that would echo through me
for years. My nána, a warm heavenly figure,
was the buzzing center of it all. I felt special
seated at this foreign, grown-up island;
a welcome intruder and pupil. The butter
melted on my tongue as I received the blessing
of the softest, freshest flour.
“Hay mas, hijita. Comer todo lo que quieras.”
Everything in my life could have been solved
by a tortilla with butter. Like when my cousin
told me I was “being a white girl” and
pulled my chongo. Maybe it was because
I have my father’s name, or his teeth, or skin.
The white sheep and brown sheep of a herd
that stretches across all boundaries, grazing
on sweet tubes of culture made of tawny burns
interspersed in creamy whiteness, round and perfect.
I took each unique one deep into the body
of a growing mestiza. 

Sondra Lankford

Harbinger Student Literary Journal http://english.ttu.edu/SigTD/Harbinger/
Spring 2010 Issue
TTU 

Puscifer Power

      

    Like many others with rad taste in music, I find myself in some kind of vortex of artistic awe
when it comes to Puscifer. In case you've been under a proverbial rock somewhere listening to Nickelback, Creed, or some other "band" that regurgitates the same generic, shitty sounds and 15 year old boy lyrics - let me fill you in. Puscifer is a rotating cavalry of musicians that centers around Maynard James Keenan. If you haven't heard of Tool or A Perfect Circle....we definitely need to talk. Let me know and I shall cover these in detail within later posts.  

  I've been a fan of Keenan's for many moons and have never been able to catch a Tool or APC show, so I'm ultra psyched to see Puscifer in December. From what I've digested through the albums, videos, interviews, internet info, etc, I'm expecting a cornucopia of art and performance mediums. Not only is Maynard not giving in to record companies, over-merchandising, and the all evil "mainstream"; but I feel like he's really ushering in a new style of collective artistic performance. Think vignettes,

comedy, cabaret, videos, costumes, thought
provoking ideas/suggestions....oh yeah, and some balls to the wall, kickass music from the desert wine country of Arizona.
The new album "Conditions of my Parole" is an experimental blend of Maynard's unmistakably unique voice (that is just as hauntingly beautiful as it was in 1990), and crashing, addictive percussion and guitar melodies.

        There's something nostalgic and simultaneously new about songs like "Telling Ghosts" and "Green Valley", and honestly, the whole fuckin' album. It's emotional, it's chaotic, it's gorgeous, it's creepy, it's fearful, and it's brave. There's grit and sweat in the songs, and they're infused with an intoxicating, audible elixir not unlike the effects of excellent wine.
Tracks like "Tiny Monsters" harbor trance-like industrial rhythms with hypnotic vocals lifting you up through the vortex I mentioned earlier.

        Self-expression is the ultimate high. Everybody wants to be unique, and yet almost everyone's the same due to pop culture, fads, and such. We are obviously much more complicated human beings than Facebook and Pinterest can showcase, and we all know that the majority of the time when people meet us, they meet our representatives -our general, public exterior that we perceive as what society deems "normal". We eventually reveal our true faces to a portion of people, but even then, there will always be a gap between what interchanges between the two of you, and what swims inside your head at 2AM, or 4PM, or every minute of every day.

So, well done, Puscifer. I can't wait for the experience in December!
Yay for artistic expression!