E= MC squared.

So its been a cool ass minute since i took the time to stop. pause. reflect. and connect pen to paper in a way that fossilizes my thoughts- there's the fear perhaps of what could emerge from the abyss of one's mind, that deep, cavernous place far within, tangled with the cobwebs of history's incandescent moments. Your memory will fail you, but the all mighty quill shall not, as the inner workings of the subconscious gush forth with the infallibility of life, embalmed in its own ceaseless immortality.

you asked me to write, E, and writing i am.... because you shall see the brilliance that shines like the lone light in a sea of darkness, bouying it's way to the surface. we all wish we could glimpse our humanness; some have a way with revealing our inner vicissitudes in ways others do not. there are those, like me, who take pleasure in pondering the striking uncertainty of it all, who dabble in the unknown with rapture, sensuous delight.

i wonder of your own magnitude, the posturings of your body, the flickers of emotion that cross the oceans of your deep, warm eyes. because part of what i feel is indescribable, a flurry of warm and penetrating instances that embed themselves, deeply, keenly, ever so serenely... is it the way you fill an entire room with your being, top to bottom, floor to ceiling, beckoning the eye in your direction? or is it the way you can demurely camaflouge your way into the foreground, innocuously and surreptitiously sitting on the rim of life's rushing canvas? you stick. somehow. in a world that is fleeting, where time flows through the fingers like sand. where faces become blurred with time's fash forward button, people forgotten, memories swept aside like the high noon tide. because you matter, in that large and special way, to the people you come across, leaving an imprint, a footprint frozen like the apparitions of the sun's telling mark on the body's canvas... easily left behind, not easily forgotten...

joy. JOY. joy.

oohh, this one!

pausing for a quick pre-wedding snaperoo

E+J

Oldies but goodies of the stuff that happened, but never got broadcasted. Enjoy.

MY INTRO TO ENDYMION...

A TASTE OF THE PARADE:

INTRO TO BACCHUS PARADE, MARDIS GRAS 2010

BE*WITCHED.

Sweet coupled airs we sing.
No lonely seafarer
Holds clear of entering
Our green mirror.

-The Odyssey

Inspired by an episode of Oprah today featuring Raquel Welch, known perhaps more famously for her sexpot status a la One Million Years B.C. than her contributions to film (unless you count wearing animal skin loin cloths as 'contributions'), I visited some of the prevailing women of the last century who defined SEX ICON and changed not only film and women's place in it, but much of our conversations and discussions on male/female relations. Strangely intrigued by these siren songs of beauty and carnal objects of lust and desire for men (and women, I need mention), I think that there has always been something beguiling and mysterious about the heavy-lidded, tease-tressed sexpots, what with their lips ever so slightly parted and their dreamy bedroom eyes begging silent invitation. With much of their appeal centered squarely on their sulking beauty and glowing sensuality, the women featured below are a few amongst the pantheon of World War II pinups and tribute magazine spreads legions of men and women have come to iconify.

Marilyn Monroe

Brigette Bardot

And while their beauty is intoxicating, dreamy even, what with their coy smiles and generous figures beckoning the eye their direction, there is something so tragically marred about these archetypal 'femme fatales', who seemed to carry with them an elixir containing both a bounty of power and impending calamity. Take it back to Homer's Odyssey, set in 12th century BC, where the Sirens sing a song so irresistible, Circe warns Odysseus to plug the sailor's ears with beeswax and have them tied to the mast if they wish to go onward with their treacherous journey. This idea of temptation as a deadly threat is no novel idea, harkening back to Biblical times with the first original ancestors of sexual deadlock , Sir Adam and Madame Eve. Postmodern cinema and Hitchcock films of noir showcase these cutting figures of device and trickery as the lady in wait casts a sort of magical spell over the trembling men who are so lost in desire, they see only crimson.

Elizabeth Taylor

Tempted to call it mere fantasy, it's more than just that, as a power play shifts into gear, one's feminine wiles used as tricks of allure to advance one's personal gains. This interlocking exchange between power and tantalizing seduction among men and women is self-evident from literature to films and music and even in our most esteemed governmental institutions. The women captured in this post are only a few of the beauties who captivated audiences and suitors over the last century; their lives were heralded, their deaths declared tragedies. For the ones whose lives and careers were cut short, we are left to wonder whether they were driven to their grave by the very success which made them into superstars. However, upon closer examination, in our impassioned urges to assign blame, it becomes clear that it was no mere ploy of the directors and film studio heads whose low budget films profited immensely from these women's draw. We see, indeed, the way these women used and profited themselves, turning their faces and bodies into commodities, tools for profit and self-advancement.

Italian beauty, Sophia Loren

Jayne Mansfield

Rita Hayworth

Bardot

Betty Page

Betty Grable

Jane Russell

Nights on the Bay.

During those days where your stomach eats you alive from the nerves and stress, I take a DEEEEEEP ass breath, inhaling and exhaling with intention. I blast that Thievery Corporation and watch the scenery whiz by my window. Oh Bonnet Carre Spillway, how I adore/abhor you. Louisiana, you are boatloads of fun and soul, but pretty you are not. Some days I miss Cali with such a vengeance. What I'd give to be sitting on top of San Fransisco, staring out at the glittering lights skimming off the Bay. Lost in nostalgia. Reverie. Eating a bowl of Papamingo tart yogurt, mango and mochi piled atop. Sucking on the spoon, closing my eyes, losing myself in the swirl of the energy pumping through the warm night air. Relishing the dopeness that is CALI.

Cuts for Luck and Scars for Freedom

I've been following Mystic for years, appreciative of a female MC who delivers as much intelligent delectation to her lyrics as soul personified. I looove her raw honesty, hard spit on real shit and real issues (listen to Fatherless Child, Spoken Peace and Fallen Angels) and ability to stay versatile and yet so true to her game.

twisted elegance.

I am enamored by beauty, in people, places and things. My cousin told me, that as a child, I had a peculiar penchant for insightful observation. I would sit on doorsteps, stare out the windows of buses during our impromptu excursions, or go plucking about on the Los Angeles city streets... and I would just stare at the scenery enfolding before my very eyes. I would marvel at an upturned smile on a passer-byers face, lapse into existential reverie passing by the decaying feet of a transient lying on a bench, hop in and out of puddles with my makeshift, paper-sewn sandals... I remember, most specifically, going to Century City mall with my petite yet noble Korean grandmother, as we fingered the clothing in upscale retailers, touching the fabric with a curious delicacy, following its folds and texture. She would look at the tag on the inside, and with a nod and a cheeky grin of smug satisfaction, say "Good", if the item happened to be made in the United States. If it were made in Hong Kong, she would crinkle her nose and move along.

That love and appreciation for beauty has translated in many different ways, physical and immaterial. I've found also, that beauty for me has evolved or metamorphasized over the years and the accumulation of life experiences. For me, beauty is not always pretty. In fact, some of the most beautiful aspects in life lay bare in those battle scars, hard fought and hard won, but mightily claimed. I began to develop an almost vulgar taste for the acrid, the sorts of films and plotlines that were anything but virtuous or whimsical, devoid of the prototypical, Walt Disney sugary ending. Movies that once haunted me became embodiments of truth, stripped of artifice and vaingloriousness. I watched films such as The Virgin Suicides, American Beauty, Blow, Monster, Behind the Sun and City of God with a sense of savage rage, blood-curdling passion, reckless abandon, renewed luminosity... And yet I found, in those sad endings, tragic story lines, and maladroit adaptations of our tortured existence, a life LIVED.. truly, richly and densely. I made sense of the insensible, found beauty in the grittiness, understood more deeply the binaries and dichotomies crossing the span of generations, and related to the pain, the atrocity, the hypocrisy with an almost unnerving acuteness.

i'm still finding myself, what it means to be human. what it means to fall and fumble and yet still rise. what human dignity means, compassion, a sense of unbridled righteousness and strength in even turbulent waters. i rise and i stand, aware of the possibilities that lie in wait as the world turns and the horizons expand beyond the naked eye's wildest imagination. This, I Know.

Thank God I didn't give up shopping for Lent...

I'm torn between two pairs of shoes that I'm currently coveting. Fashion forward people, care to deliberate? I love how the first pair are great for the every day, and the ones below that are just such foot candy (I fell in love with the t-straps on Swank Height's blog). YOUR OPINION COUNTS!!!!!

A)


OR THESE?

B)


C) OR HOW ABOUT JUST BOTH?

VALIDATION, a short film.

This was a short film sent to me years back and I fell in love with the simple yet sweet storyline- what can I say, I'm a sucker for the "feel good" type of stuff. But sometimes, we need those simple reminders of the small things that make life oh so grand.

St. Patty's Shenanigans

Ohhhhhh, St. Patty's, St. Patty's.

The city is cast with a green glow- let me forewarn you, even the BEER is green here, in New Orleans.

Had a blast and a half yesterday at the St. Patty's Parade here in NOLA (come on, when is there ever a reason to NOT throw a parade here?) where beaucoup- pronounced BUCCU- people flooded the streets in their green regalia to celebrate the day dedicated to uhhh-getting shit-faced? Haha. It was a lot of fun actually- I wish I took more (and better) pix of the action. Of course you had your classic "Everyone loves an Irish girl" t-shirt and a twist on the classic- "Everyone loves a drunk girl" tee. A guy wore a shirt emblazoned with "Kiss me. I'm shit-faced." I met a man wearing a floor-length green ball gown with a wig, fairy dust, green painted finger-nails- his name is Aaron and he's an office manager, buahahah!

Me, Jamie, and the gang gathered at First and Magazine where we chillaxed in the fucking incredible midday sun, drinking margueritas, Irish car bombs, Guinness'- you name it, we had it. And it was just so festive and FUN- the cute Irish boys in the parade line would come up to us and tuck flowers in our hair (the tradition is that you exchange kisses on the cheek- how very French, uhh, I mean Irish), toss beads and cabbage (nothing, I mean NOTHING is more romantic than a man throwing wilted produce at your feet) at us and even pull up panties and garter belts up the leg if you happened to be a lucky recipient.

It was all good! I love this city, I fucking LOOVE it. I still feel the need to hide my open drink or beer every time I pass a cop, but then I remind myself- Jeanine, it's all good in tha hood, baby! So after a lazy, chill, sun-drenched afternoon of playing in the sun, dancing in the streets and drinking up a storm, I passed out, in a proper sun-dazed, intoxicated asphyxia, reveling in the good ol' Irish roots (yeah, right, I wish) and day dedicated to all things green and splendid.

Now, I just need to go eat me bowl of lucky charms!