Chanel No. Five

Saw a Chanel ad yesterday on Hulu that superimposed a Marilyn Monroe quote about wearing No. Five to bed onto old black and white photos of her. It's not a surprise her presence long recedes her--the woman was an icon. But it sort of blew my mind that that little part of her entire life has receded so far into the future. The bombshell used Chanel No. Five. Marketable info for decades.

I wonder how heavily Marilyn considered taking on that ad campaign. Maybe she really did love Chanel No. Five, and she was happy to support it. Maybe she looked at all the zeros on the contract and happily signed away, a foster kid from the 30s. There's a slight chance she didn't want to degrade herself to a commercial, but it was a ritzy one. So? I wonder if it ran through her mind, "It's just a commercial, what does it matter in the course of my life?" Little did she know she didn't even have much life left. Or maybe she did know, and that was the point. Regardless, maybe she knew when she passed at age 36 we'd still be talking about her fifty years later. But even if she did, could she have imagined me? A 90s kid watching her ghost rep perfume and womanhood in general? I don't know the person who invented the creative behind the ad to begin with. He might be dead too. Could he picture me? Just because he has no face or name to the world at large doesn't mean what he did doesn't matter. It matters big. Or at least it did yesterday morning when I thought all these things in conjunction to his work. Legacy is part of the American Dream. A problematic, unhappiness suck of a black hole. But legacy need not be sought. It is part of existing.

Friends hula-hooping. November 2013.

New Ideas I'm Thinking About Thanks to Muff

After dipping my feet into the Mississippi last month. It had to be done.

Muff visited me for an entire week. A week! Here are some new ideas I am churning:

-Could there really be an afterlife? Would all existential crisis be terminated if you believed so?
-What exactly is the study of literature?
-Some people don't have any self-confidence. That should be remembered.
-It's really nice to not worry about being left out.
-Infinity exists in a small patch of woods. There are orb-weavers there.
-Our relationship with things that can be sensed is really just brain power making us think we have a relationship. Like, when you think about it, what does food actually taste like, and why do we like it?
-You can go crazy trying to prove your own philosophies right, but if they are right, they probably can't be proven--especially by you alone.
-If you believe in the whole person, everything about the person can be beautiful and complete.

Every Penny Pithy Thing

And I promise it will feel like this,
no matter how bad things seem,
I can promise you this:

That when it rains at the end of February, you will feel the life churning in the grass below you.
You will taste the water, and you will know Better is on its way.
That when you work with your own body, and get very quiet, and sit very still,
it will tell you what it needs.
Maybe even a bag of sea salt potato chips at 11:30 PM.
That when you pinch other people's comfort with your OCD tendencies,
if they love you, they will calm down enough to listen and to try to understand,
and to say It's Okay and not let it spoil the Sunday goat cheese crepes.
That love is blind, and work gets done, and you can eat twenty-five cookies
in one night
and you don't have to feel sick.

And no matter how good things seem,
I can promise you this:

That there is too much butter in the bowl.
That you might have to rush some things.
That you won't really ever know if it's "working out" the way you intended it to "work out."
That people don't always say Goodbye.
That you're always going to be an idiot about something.

But, still, I'll accept it all--every penny pithy thing--
for the wind outside, threatening to become a tornado.

After Life: Part II

Yesterday morning I watched a wonderful and inspiring Japanese film called After Life. The premise is that after people die, they get to pick their favorite memory, a crew works to recreate it, and then for all of eternity people just relive that moment.

First of all, what a pleasant view of the afterlife.
Second of all, it's very interesting to think about what people would pick as their favorite memory.

In the film, many people picked memories from childhood. At first, I found that depressing. The best moment of life happens when you're in grade school? I started to wonder what mine was...if I too was guilty of peaking in my teens. But, when I thought about it more, having a perfect tranquil kid memory might only be the best memory because it sets an important tone for the rest of life.

It's so hard to pick the best. Some people in the movie had trouble because in the end, they felt that everything had been bad or bland. At least I would have trouble picking because there are too many good memories to consider.

If I had to pick right now this very second I guess I would pick to relive performing a sketch I wrote with Trel at summer camp in 2003. It was really funny, and we got an encore. Isn't that random? I don't know. I don't consider it a failure that I was fourteen. I could pick any one of a million memories from last year and feel just as happy--there's just something special about that July Talent Show. Oh, who knows.