A semester in review

The Fall 2013 semester…is over…already! It feels as though it just started, but I'm glad it's over anyway. This semester was, by far, the most productive and interesting semester I've had. It was challenging (for multiple reasons, some reasons I alluded to in previous posts), fun and I learned, to use rather insignificant words, 'a lot' about myself. Hands-on courses have been the most challenging for me, and knowing that, I knew Rhetoric of Nonlinear Documents would be influential. There were  sparkles, shards of mirror and tears, but I was correct, I learned an unbelievable amount and figured out (finally) that I'm capable of doing/producing/thinking/writing more than I believed I could. I have three favorite professors and two of them are from this past semester. These professors have a few things in common; they required quality work (a lot of it) and their courses made me think. Of course their sphere of influence reached many more than just I. I made friends (!!!) (I know, you're thinking, 'that's not easy for an INTJ). One of them decided he didn't want a corporate job, he wanted to travel and "work with my [his] hands!" One professor convinced me--it didn't take much convincing--that it's 'obvious' I should continue with education. I'll never forget what he said; in particular that it's so clear I have what it takes to succeed in graduate school. So that's my plan--grad school. Key word; visual rhetoric.

Before I forget, I'm super excited about my extra curricular activities for Spring. I'll be coauthoring an article on image and word with a professor (I'm still working on taking a broad topic and focusing in on one manageable aspect) which will, hopefully and most likely, be published in a journal. If I were to publish as an undergrad, and I apply for doctoral programs with that on my resume...well that's three head nods as one professor gestured. 

I may have the opportunity to work on an editorial job for the chair of the school as well. So now that I'm on holiday, I'm preparing for Spring. I'll be reading Walter Ong's Orality and Literacy, finishing The Magic Mountain, IRB training and teaching myself Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. Thank god for Lynda.com... This is going to be the most productive holiday break--ever. 

Are you a Chatwinian?

I'm a fourth year (senior, whatever you prefer to call it) and I'm taking a seminar course about Bruce Chatwin…have you ever heard of him? Ever read any of his work? There are seven students in the class which is pretty damn fantastic and the professor is, I want to say amazing, because he's extremely knowledgable and tells great stories (they usually involve some historical aspect and I usually find history lectures to be prosaic but not these).

Anyways, I've had to read all of Chatwin's work (which amounts to seven novels/books of essays). I got stuck, I mean having the privilege, of writing a reception history for The Viceroy of Ouidah. It's just okay.

Hands down my favorite Chatwin piece is On The Black Hill. It's a beautifully written, more traditional, novel. Each of his books (In Patagonia, The Songlines, The Viceroy of Ouidah, Utz) is set in a different part of the world (he was a 'wander,' believed a nomadic life is best) and each book falls into different genres (In Patagonia actually ended up in the travel section originally--which is why Chatwin was known as a travel writer, The Viceroy of Ouidah falls under historical fiction, The Songlines, according to Chatwin, is fiction and so is Utz). All the books are great, except The Viceroy of Oudiah…because it's just meh. But you might love it, don't let my lack of enthusiasm deter you from reading all of his work. The biography on Bruce Chatwin from 2000 (written by Nicholas Shakespeare) has great information and it's rather entertaining. Chatwin creates fantastic and quirky characters, much like himself.

As part of my research, I had to watch Cobra Verde (1988), a film directed by Werner Herzog which stars Klaus Kinski (it's actually the last film the two made together, they hated each other). Kinski as a Brazilian slave trader? I just didn't see Herzog's vision. I can still see Kinski's face… Needless to say, the film is a very very very freely adapted version of the book.

Photography Portfolio

My photography portfolio is finally done! I've put many hours into this and I've gotten some great feedback so far. All the images are mine; I took them all. I'm kind of proud because I think it looks great!

If you'd like to see it for yourself, click here or visit acohen32.wix.com/photography

Postmortem photography research

Dear reader--

We meet again...

I was thinking the other day about how I blog, this is my blog, yet I don't really read other peoples blogs. So why do you read this? Do you find what I say interesting? Or are you bored and you've just now come across this delightful Internet campground full of rants, random essays, poetry here and there, and every now and then, a cute photograph of my pet(s)?

Anyways, this is usually where I inquire to whether or not you'd like to know what I've been up to. Interested? If you are, keep reading--if not, skip to the next blog because this is a focused post (not allowing myself to ramble on, oops, I'm on a tangent)--so I've previously mentioned I've been writing a research paper on postmortem photography: art versus reality. I did a very very very small study in-class on the response towards postmortem images (Image 1 was a Victorian postmortem image, Image 2 was Margaret Bourke-White's photograph of a South Korean holding the severed head of the North Korean (1952), Image 3 was Ambulance Disaster from Andy Warhol's 1963 Death and Disaster series). The results were, lets just say, astounding. My plan was to categorize the responses as emotional or intellectual, but I needed a consistent method to measure each response. So I thought, and I played around with how to decipher the responses, and I thought some more and then the light bulb…I analyzed each response based on whether or not the response consisted of nouns and adjectives! Nouns are concrete: people, places, things. Adjectives are descriptors. Ergo, nouns correlate to intellectual responses and adjectives correspond to emotional responses.

My preliminary research, in which four of my Google+ followers were kind enough to participate, showed that there were two types of responses according to my method; a mixed response (the response had attributes of both an emotional response and an intellectual response) and a purely intellectual response. The results from the in-class study show that these two response types exist. To cut to the point, not one respondent in either study responded to either the concept of postmortem photography or the visual stimuli purely emotionally. My hypothesis was that people respond toward reality-based and artistic postmortem images differently and in fact, this is true. In Study 2 (in-class study), every respondent viewed Image 3 (Warhol's work) completely intellectually. My reasoning for this is because art is representational, the death in the artistic image is representational--this causes a detachment between the viewer and the piece and the response reflects this detachment. My reasoning for my people only have an emotional response in conjunction with that of an intellectual is precisely because the subject matter makes people uncomfortable (it could potentially be too upsetting to allow oneself to respond fully emotionally). This could be related to subconscious versus conscious and the filter…anyhow, that's a separate topic of study.

Fascinating huh? I think so.

Untitled

Well, I... Uh...maybe, um... nope I've got nothing...

She looks so.... 

Hallo, it's almost Tuesday

Hello Everyone!

I believe this is my first post this October and it's already two thirds over. I'm extremely busy with school; still working on that postmortem photography paper. Today I watched Cobra Verde, a 1988 film directed by Werner Herzog. It was simply...horrible. The narrative didn't follow the book at all and it was just weird. Klaus Kinsky was scary and his movements reminded me of 'recusè' (I have no idea if I spelled that correctly) but it's supposed to mean the stop and start, rapid and mechanized movements of the actor. 

Let's see...what else is new...

Oh, on the okcupid front, I found a really nice guy (he appears that way). According to his profile, he is ridiculously cute, intelligent, and Jewish but ahem, lives in California (sad face). I still think we should be penpals, stranger things have happened. 

One last thing; my favorite picture of the week--->

The best title I could come up with

I haven't blogged in a while. I know.

School has been overwhelming. One class in particular, a 'nonlinear documents' class, a.k.a photography course, has proven to be tremendously time consuming. I've been working on a research paper on 'postmortem photography in relation to art and reality' for photography class, as well as two other research papers for a film course (Editing of Fritz Lang's M versus Classical Continuity Style Editing and Soviet Editing) and a reception history of Bruce Chatwin's novella, The Viceroy of Ouidah, which hasn't actually been started...yet. In between reading research and writing research papers, I've been working on an idea for erotic fiction. I only have about 2000 words, so it's only an idea at this point. I haven't worked on writing poetry lately (sad face). I've also been going through one of those in-between phases. I guess the best way to describe it would be the scene from Sideways where Miles (played by Paul Giamatti) refuses to drink merlot because he'll go to the 'dark side' or if you prefer Cold Souls, the scene where he says "My soul is a chickpea?!"

Well I guess I've been there for a few weeks now; my motivation (to start anything) is at a very low negative one, that's right, it's beyond zero. I can't sleep and when I do, I wake up every few hours (e.g. I woke up last night at 10:46pm, then 1:30am, 4:54am, 6:30am, 6:57am). All I want to do is bake, watch movies, read, write and sleep. Some day's I worry about my future, the next, I'm pretty much like 'fuck it.' I don't want to be a consultant or travel (unless it's to actually travel to see the world, travel and work is a big fat lie). Any-ways... and then there's the bit about the guy. I watched Benjamin Button and started crying because Benjamin goes away and disappears...it's a reminder of a loss of friendship (or was it not?? Friends don't just disappear when things aren't all smiley faces and warm, fuzzy kittens so in that case, we had nothing but an illusion of a friendship, my fault for misunderstanding), what if's, wants, all that crap you know what I'm talking about. I go from angry to sad to sadder and then saddest of all. I don't open up to people often, it takes years, and I took a risk and I did and it just hurts. But I'm working on letting go, moving on and jotting down whatever comes to mind, in case I get a poem or two out of all of this. It may be surprising (probably not) but I'm good at expressing myself through text, hence the poetry, but I don't share my emotions so well verbally. I come off cold, insensitive and unfeeling if I feel things such as disappointment, sadness, emotional pain, anger, etc. Apart from feeling crushed and slightly heartbroken, I'm still functioning at a relatively high level.

I think I've rambled on about nonsensical things enough now that it would be the right thing to do to let you go back to being productive members on the Internet. Live Long and Prosper.

Hypocritical Susan Sontag...is positively pedantic and pretentious

Reading Susan Sontag's On Photography and second essay, America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly, is just infuriating! Arbus' work is so original? No it was not. And it was Weegee's disaster series that inspired her work? No it wasn't. It was Weegee's photography on the absurd, the grotesque, the odd that inspired her work. 

And you're going to tell me that Warhol's work was narcissistic!? His work is a direct reflection of society, in particular the disgusting obsession with celebritism (the obsession with fame, hence his 15 minutes of fame quote) which has just gotten worse. That's not narcissistic; his work acts as a mirror. Arbus' work on the other hand is absolutely narcissistic! 

Arbus has chosen this subject matter because she sees her 'safe' childhood as a form of adversity, as a flaw. Ergo, her work is narcissistic because she experimented with photographing the strange, the odd, the taboo for her own personal experience and personal gain (and personal satisfaction) to make up for the lack of the absurd, the grotesque in her youth. 

It's interesting that Sontag admires her work so greatly - she says it's a fuck you to popular culture, it's an active statement against the conventional, the popular, which is fascinating because Sontag considers the act of photography as passivity ( read previous essay). Sontag is arrogant, pedantic and pretentious, and her work is arrogant, pedantic and pretentious. Her argument is flawed - its structure is so holey it metaphorically resembles that of swiss cheese.

The obsession with uniqueness is so....completely banal and prosaic. Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Pinterest are boring and repetitive and the impulsivity fostered by 'social media' leads to a narcissistic society mental model which happens to become quite monotonous. It's narcissistic of Sontag to give a completely one-sided argument, but that is/was her personality; always going against the current. It gets boring to be so rebellious, and to maintain the same facade for so long, is well, rather inhibitory. 

Flibbertigibbet

I have nothing of value to say after all. 

Are these too short or short enough? And yeah, I got super dressed up to go shopping...gotta look like crap once in a while to appreciate the days I look good...

Meh

August 19th marks The Spout's one year birthday! I've been whining, complaining, venting, and writing something contemplative every now and then, for an entire year already, and my favorite tag is still 'pain and suffering.' I'm most definitely in a mood this weekend because its back to school, yuckk. 

Feeling the weight of a day

Emptiness is a rather heavy emotion. I think this poem is pretty much self explanatory. It's a very rough draft...If you find it to be scratchy, I apologize, I just wrote it. 

A Day

Just a date,

a few numbers and dashes 

two slashes

marking the death of time,

nothingness

in the big scheme of things, 

a minuscule marker of our history. 

A twenty-four hour journey,

a good day or

a struggle 

to drag oneself 

across

like immobile clock hands hovering,

or waiting for my heart 

to beat because 

I wanted you. 

Today I feel--

disappointment 

hopelessness

sadness

tiring waves of feeling 

like a pendulum 

suffering from chronic 

monotonous movement, 

thoughts of you 

just may,

I pray,

be gone

tomorrow. 

Free music and the best part is that it's legal!

I was googling my way around the Interweb the other week and came across a truly awesome (and amazing) website - noisetrade.com

You can download whatever you want for free, and you can even donate money to the artists if you love them that much. They have tons of great artists, it's unbelievable to see how many talented people there are.

All that is required of you is that you provide an email and zip code to get a download link. The music is in a zip file so it's super easy to add it to the iTunes library - or whatever you use.

Constructive criticism isn't evil, it's good

I've been writing a lot lately, almost everyday actually. If I'm not writing something new, I'm revising something old. I joined the Google+ poetry community and I'm trying to get myself involved, especially  with the critique requested category. I figure that if I can offer another poet a question about their work to get them to think about how to make their work better or a bit of advice, then that means I've learned something.

I must admit that one user posted under this said category and I happened to find his poem, and I politely offered feedback, acknowledging what I liked about his poem too. It wasn't negative feedback, just good old fashioned constructive criticism. After all it was in this category. He didn't respond harshly to my comments, but he did attempt a discussion with other community members about the role of feedback. 

Basically, he stated that feedback was not necessary to make one's work better because it would no longer be your work. If other people gave you feedback, to change this or that, add this, get rid of this, it would no longer be your individual creation, it would be a collaborative piece that wouldn't look like your style. Actually 'you,' your voice, would be replaced by other non-you voices. 

I have to say that I was kind of pissed off by this, especially about the part that feedback from others won't improve your work. I think that's complete bullshit. I said it. I took a class that was set up like workshop and I've never gained so much knowledge or improved so much before. Taking that class, where we all sat in a circle, sharing our work, reading it aloud, talking about it, blatantly discussing, critiquing and ripping apart one another's work (not worrying about how the author would take it because we were there to learn from one another), was the best thing I could have done to become a better writer. I find what he said to be pure ignorance; it's a refusal to learn from other people who have had more experience writing, and how could you choose to refuse learning from others? 

It's another luv poem

I was inspired to write this poem from a dream I had...from about three years ago. The title of the piece is significant because the dream was layered. The color of the dream shifted from color to sepia to black and white, and the structure of the poem reflects this, at least I think it does. Please keep in my that this is a relatively new draft - I think it has a ways to go before it's near completion, but it's an exercise for me - this is the longest poem I've written so far. Enjoy!

xo, 

Ari

____________________________

Three Deep

Jogging down

the road 

autumn leaves 

whirling, rustling 

and the feel of

cold, crisp air

on my pinked cheeks.

A Holy ruin,​​

the white wooden

house rests hillside—

window panes and

porch parched and

cracked, clumsy rusted

hinges,

on the door,

and a sign for sale

stuck slanted.​

Yellowed brown,

paneled papered walls,

carpet shagged and soft

under my shoes,​

a warmth in this house.

In the kitchen

nailed up​

suspended with string

a photograph—​

a wedding,

a man and

me.

A disorienting dizzy pain,

I fall to floor,

body and eyelids

sink and slump.​

Blackness all over.

Space solemn and empty,​

film reels flick

embrace me

my soul feels, no form

just eyes in air​​

there, you are.

Hollow and heavy

I feel—​​

you, I’ve known before.

Your name unknown,

but soul familiar, ​​​

I loved—

you and you—

loved

me

beautifully.​​​

An image in my mind

Dear you, 

I believe that a good poem has heart, image and sound. In this particular poem, I broke the rules. This poem isn't about feeling, I've been told that "this poem makes me feel nothing," and I'm okay with that. This poem is about sound and in particular, image. The image came from a dream and it was incredibly beautiful. A friend of mine told me that after reading this poem, he saw the "most beautiful image" he's ever seen in his life. That is some compliment. I hope you like it. 

xo,

Ari

____________________________

Sea Night

A Las Vegas night of light

on the beach,

Chinese lanterns strung loosely

across rooftops zigzag,

figures fade into the night sky,

a deep blue sapphire and a dream,

lost and buried beneath

a thousand years of dust, decay, rocks and rot,

of a lost love.

The jeweled lights

hang alone. 

I keep on writing

This poem I've been told is "fresh." I originally was calling it "In Between" but how could I not resist changing it?? This is the first draft fyi; I wrote it last night. I felt compelled to write, I couldn't sleep, so I scribbled it on a piece of paper and just an hour ago, typed it up. As always, every poem is 100% original and like the seagull from Finding Nemo, it's "mine mine mine."

xo,

Ari

Fresh

The end of day

when crying completes,

my red, sore, tired eyes

and cheeks pinked, puffy

feeling the sting—

sweet words

honest words

that cut at my heart. 

My tears tonight

mark ending

overwhelming me, 

consuming me

stuck between

grasping and open hands. 

The middle—

an ending uncomfortable. 

Inspired by coffee, a couch and a city

It's no surprise I love NYC, coffee and maybe writing? The poem is from the point of view of the NYU Starbucks couch. if you've visited this particular establishment, I feel you'll fully understand this piece. Don't copy my poem please. Copying or saying it's your own creation (aka stealing it) is called plagiarism and that's illegal, and I'd be super pissed. If you'd like to leave a comment or two, what you like about it, what you don't, if any part of it is confusing, or any general comments, that would be much appreciated.

xo w <3,

Ari 

__________________________________________

NYC Starbucks

Cracked leather couch

wearing bronzed nail heads

sits watching at the window.

A microcosm of the world

like a miniature ant farm,

where the garbage and rusted bolts

of taxis zoom by,

sparkling because

that is New York City.

Spilt coffee, roasted bean dust,

and dye from a thousand blue jeans,

smudged, packed, and stained

in it’s wrinkles,

couch

sits watching at the window.

__________________________________________

Everything I write is 100% original work.

A poem about something ethereal

This is a poem I wrote based off an experience. It's unexplainable, so naturally it makes for an excellent poetic subject. This one, I feel, is nearly done, if not already. The editor of The Cortland Review, ahem, my professor, Ginger Murchison, said it's a powerful poem, particularly the end. As always, no copying my work please. Tell me what you like, loathe and/or general comments. Comments are always appreciated.

xo,
Ari

__________________________________________________

Morning

Sleeping in the sunlight,

gold and yellow jewels

stream across the room.

Above, a clouded figure                  

looming there, watching.              

We stare at one another—                      

me with widened eyes,                 

and you,                                         

who are even more surprised,    

flee in fear of being seen

through that wall, 

I close my eyes,

but it’s too late.

I’ve seen you.
Seen you.

__________________________________________________

Everything I write is 100% original work.