House of Sugar by Rebecca Kraatz

http://www.tuliptreepress.net/sugar/

In my elective class (Expanding the Poetic Toolbox: Saying the Unsayable), we are relating the vernacular of cross-genre art forms to the language utilized in describing poetry. The first genre we have endeavored upon is the graphic novel. And (being the geek that I am), I am in love with the books and study of this field in relationship to poetry. We've read Chicken with Plums and Understanding Comics thus far. This week, I was supposed to read Mother Come Home, but am unable to find ANY place which sells it on time, before Monday's class. However, I have read through the handout of examples the professor has given me, and have fallen in love with Rebecca Kraatz's series, House of Sugar. It's a whimsical little comic strip written in what could be described as poetry format (depending upon what you classify as poetry).

Either way, I am in love with it. The complete ridiculousness of some of the strips (i.e. the one where the hamster goes missing, only to be found singing on the playground) is a refreshing reminder of childhood. We only had a few examples in our packets, but I looked up the rest of them through tulip tree press.

Perhaps I enjoy the comic strip because it reminds me of my own work at times. Or maybe because she's obsessed with the 1940s films and their stars: the nostalgia for the time when the men were rugged, handsome, and secretive; and the woman were refined, stylish, and aloof.

I highly recommend it. It made me want to comic-strip-ify ALL of my poems. Perhaps when I find a scanner, I'll be able to show at least the one I've done thus far.

Enjoy if you get the chance to read them. If not, lata suckaz!

--Leni-kins

i think i have an unnatural obsession with mickey avalon:





he's just...amazing. especially for lines like: "i like a girl who eats and brings it up, a sassy little frassy with bulimia." or "jane wasn't fast she was easy to catch." YES

...amazing. so wrong, and indecent, and yet, so so right.

i am going overseas next summer. not quite sure where yet, but i am going overseas. it's an awfully exciting adventure to be discussing, and yet, (as i mentioned with amber last night)...some of the most exciting things about traveling are the preperation and the reflection.

i mean, the process itself is fun...but this is the problem with travellers: it is not the process they like, but the constant change: that which speaks to the ineffable power within us that begs: move...constant motion.

i have difficulty living in the present, and always have, and probably always will: i am constantly reflecting and looking forward. so a life of travel seems inexplicably correct for a being such as myself.

...grad school has made me quite aware at the lack of the "i" in my writing...the constant connection to things through observation. is this a bad thing? i never know.

my mind's all over the place.

i found the gateway!

so i'm not quite sure when the obsession started (i think sometime back in mid-september or october of last year), but i have fallen in love with the mid-nineties hit, sliders. it's the story of Quinn (a young scientist), his professor, his co-worker (and love interest) Wade, and (by chance), the perfomer, Rembrandt "the crying man" Brown. In its later years, the show got switched off to sci-fi, Jerry O'Connell left, as well as Sabrina Lloyd, and the Johnathan Rhys Davies. Leaving Rembrandt to substitute for the show's voice-over narration. But, having re-watched (and yes, I'll admit it...BOUGHT) seasons 1 & 2 box set, I have re-discovered my undying love for the ridiculous plot lines, neverending unrequited love stories, and the whole concept of parallel universes.

Don't confuse me for one of those conspiracy-theory-reading, abducted-by-aliens, ghosts-are-all around us science fiction nuts. I'm not die hard by any means. But I think the show appeals back to the child in me: the one curious about the fantasies of science. And yes, the words fantasy and science CAN and DO inherently go together. Commonly we discuss the wonders of science, but what about all these elaborate hoaxes people research, the gateways people claim to have seen, the alien spaceships in haiti: what about these things. They all come down to the ideas of: "we are not alone in the universe" or "things could have turned out differently." Whereas we could go about this naturally human desires by creating complete fiction, why not experiment with the idea of science? Why not? Don't we all want to know the scientific facts behind things? We wish for scientific fact to make our fantasies plausible and probable. Plastic surgery is a perfect example. How strange that we can bring in a picture of a celebrity and say: make me look like this, I don't like my own equipment. And that, in a few simple procedures, it will happen (or close to). Years ago, this would've been thought impossible, but now it's a business expanding exponentially by hundreds of percents a year. Soon, we MAY all look the same.

But back to the original point of this entry: Sliders. Mid-nineties. There I was on Wednesday night in my brother's room. I was 10, maybe 11, and I remember watching the premiere of this show. My father sat, while I laid on my stomach, feet in the air, dangling in anticipation for my fantasies to be realized. And they were. It became a ritual: Sliders night with my father. We would watch it together and discuss it together. And it made me happy that possibilities were out there to defy my expectations. And that's what I've come to desire: defy expectations, convential wisdom; I feel the need to seed inspiration into the almost-dead souls of 10 year old girls just like me.

And though the network switched the shows to Fridays, switched networks, changed casts, and eventually was cancelled. I lost touch with my enamor of foreign worlds and creative ideas. They fell to the byways of a life well-spent socially with a beer in hand. But now, re-watching these shows that so spoke to me in some of my darker times as a child, I suddenly am reminded: anything is possible. Even recovery.

here i am in new york city and wondering what the world has to offer. i wonder if this is what was meant by the world at your fingertips. or if this is merely a distraction from the world i once knew. i feel grown. i feel alone. i feel as though everything is moving me apart from all that i knew: and i'm okay with it.