Showing posts with label photos : by c. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photos : by c. Show all posts

02 November 2010

the old it was a dark and stormy night line


















at the newspaper meeting last friday (before halloween), dressed in costumes, i had the kids use their stormy creativity on the old "it was a dark and stormy night..." line, taking it places it had never been... 


DO something with it, i told them, like, something, different, from a noise scratching at the window etc... i knew they were capable (and frankly, they knew it too.)


the next hour and a half that followed was full of poems, dark 'n stormy stories, haiku, photo shoots, and an abundance of pleading moments: can i pleeeeaaaase read you what i just wrote?? can i read this out loud? can i share just one more?!!! 


... somehow, a few quiet gems were left unseen, tucked in the stack of pages to photocopy. it wasn't until later when i was making copies that i found this one amongst the others in the stack, written by my dearest abby. and standing there in the bright and empty copy room... i read abby's dark 'n stormy adaptation.



It was a dark and Stormy night .........

a young couple danced 
under the dim light of the moon as 
it was snowing. 

The Christmas Spirit 
was just around the corner, 

but not one Christmas tree was up.

10/29/10 by abby






all alone with a huge grin, i shook my head at the page saying, ABBY! abby abby abby you got it-- this is-- that's it abby, i knew, you knew... exactly. abby!! this is why, this is exactly, kind of-- the thing i'd-- 


dark 'n stormy barbie 
(writing talent sold separately) 


•••


photos and content by chantal (and abby



08 October 2010

and leaves


"Praise and blame, gain 
and loss, pleasure and sorrow 
come and go like the wind. 




To be happy, 
rest like a giant tree 
in the midst of them all." 
[buddha]

07 September 2010

el view



"Nonsense wakes up the brain cells. 

And it helps develop a sense of humor, 

which is awfully important in this day and age. 

Humor has a tremendous place in this sordid world. 

It's more than just a matter of laughing. 

If you can see things out of whack, 
then you can see how things can be 
in whack."

[Dr. Seuss]


photo credit : chantal

16 August 2010

how did it-- where did the-- ?


"to live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else"
e m i l y  
d i c k i n s o n






















photo credit: chantal

22 July 2010

scene






it is. he was right, 
" all the world's a stage... "

caught in the act 
but by a few, 
most walk on and along 
consuming without question
thought-- 
second thought-- what's made us watch us 
perform so-- 
from behind big sunglasses no reflection glitter on bright 
screens starred envisioned watching the time forgot to look 
and to think-- 

but what's the purpose-- 
question-- so on 
and on... 
so and so and 
speaking, flashing, posing, speaking
lines when prompted 
and on 
and on and -- line -- 

and on 
and on 
and off consumed 
oft it is... 

he was right











ps....

yes that's right i just remembered... i have a blog!!! ha! wow, funny how that slipped my mind. in fact, i have two blogs, well, more than two.. i better catch up. 

'all the world's a stage' is the theme of the summer writing workshops that i'm doing with the kids, but it has also been the way the world has been playing before me in recent months, the way in which things have appeared to me... from behind my sunglasses (and i do believe i'm borrowing the phrase 'from behind my sunglasses' from one of my student writers! isn't that an awesome sentence?!!) authenticity is nearly impossible to grasp-- there's so very little of it... at best i put on my sunglasses and search for what little of it remains within myself... and on and on-- through-- beyond-- and behind-- all the staged and the stages...

x c


words and photos c by chantal



27 March 2010

from the cover of the big BURSTING issue....





just another comic from the 12-page newspaper the kids and i published yesterday... wow this one took a long time to put together by hand, i was up for days, but totally worth it. more on this later... as we're now in the midst of a special edition for this thursday..... let's just say it's a hilarious work of pure newspaper fiction, and we wrote the entire thing in three hours yesterday, i've never seen anything like it, it was the most hard-working, entertaining and dedicated group of 9, 10, 11 year old newspaperists (and abby of course) that i could have ever asked for. now it's up to me to get the madness in order for thursday. 

comical stuff to come. x c

10 February 2010

trying on all hats


discount shopping 
the colorful suburban way

[six words - free gift with purchase]

07 February 2010

03 February 2010

but... by the time- and we-



rush by they and you : same 
never the-- too late-FLASH- : 
-moments are when we--


[haiku cut out from a longer poem i wrote last night, will put the whole thing here shortly....]
x c


02 February 2010

01 February 2010

can only give them the seeds...



next time i'll share some of the magnetic six words from the kids... you know, the words they were busy writing while i was throwing these seeds at them :)

x c



ps more photos of the kids on my (not-so-updated) flickr

31 January 2010

pieces


i had the kids writing six word stories with magnetic poetry at friday's newspaper meeting... but of course i was right in there writing with them! more to come...

19 November 2009

six words {abandoned}







































change leaves fall colors walls abandoned



photos : by c




p.s. my sister came up with a name for her long long long-awaited science blog. yes, just this week. more on that to come. and on the newspaper i've been creating with the kids, we're about to publish the second issue. and more info on everything else too. and yes i know i've disappeared... but not completely-- x c

01 October 2009

sunday comics--


he's mr.
So and So
and i'm ms.
I Think You Know


music boxes 
kindred spirits
sunday comics






and 
i knew 
the words



 

sunday comics 
with Linus.  

yes, THAT Linus. 
who else.  




yes really, the REAL Linus from the peanuts cartoon strip (minus the blanket, he left it in the car) the most amazing man you ever did meet-- cartoonist, painter, writer, thinker, joker, smooth talker, my mentor, sunday lunch date, partner in crime and pen pal.... ....Linus doesn't have a computer, or an email address, he doesn't use the internet and still draws his cartoons by hand and submits them in the post.. so we send each other good old-fashioned letters. "we're the exception" he announced with a grin to me and everyone else at the lunch table this past sunday, referring with pride to our out-dated habit of correspondence via handwritten letters sent in the mail.

Linus has been a mentor to me in my writing and in every other creative endeavor i've attempted. he's also just somehow always been there letting me know it's ok to see things in a different light, to try things another way, and to live a life that others might never really understand, he supports me as i attempt to discover what to do with all the extra details i continue to notice about this world.



he told his parents he wanted to be a cartoonist at the age of six. he used to wait on the porch for his father to come home from work every night with newspaper in hand, so that they could read the comics together. he worked with charles schulz (creator of the peanuts comic strip) and reminds me all the time that schulz used to tell him that even if he wasn't paid to draw the peanuts comic strip, he would have done it every day anyway, that's how much a part of him it was, that's how much it meant to him. and i got it. so did Linus. 


at the age of 83 he's still working hard and has made his living as a clever cartoonist, a brilliant artist (his paintings are fantastic) and a colorful comic on and off the page. So ya, this Linus is real. Just wish he could read my blog, i've showed him a few times how to access this internet thing, but it was just an art from another time that he didn't seem to grasp, so instead i'll print it out and send it to him in the mail.




sunday comics--




x c

photos : by c
more sunday comics photographs : flickr

last time i mentioned Linus : here

22 September 2009

trying on the reading glasses at 30






had a dinner party last night in the warm still summerish air of the candle-lit backyard, in the company of a few good friends from college and paris who i don't get to see very often, the algerian, and my parents (my mom planned it as a surprise thing for my bday today) it was really nice, really good friends, really good conversation, really really really laughing. really.




 

and i figured since i'm 30 now and people seem to think that's a big deal and old, that i should act old and look old, so i should maybe wear my mom's reading glasses (the drugstore kind) i mean, 'old' people wear reading glasses right? ;) so i wore them all night i can't say they (the glasses) made it easy to see when walking around, especially outside at night... but i suppose like all things... like this new age..new decade... i'll get used to it. and on the bright side, i am excited for the potential of a new accessory--- and if all else fails, i'll wait another 10 years and try again...




x c 

(check out the full story on my flickr!)


20 September 2009

just wanted reflection : got life reflected


(six word story)

...during photo shoot with my photographer friend cristian el chico de camisa morada, i might just have convinced him to start a little photography somethin' with me... it's in the works. so what you think about that! (but he needs a blog... right?)

(more) photos : by c : here

x c

the weight on my shoulders : now in color



















the other day i bought that orange purse
the one i was wanting
the one that was too expensive.
and i don't know--
yet
why or how--
because i know
clearly i know--
an object
a purse
can't change the world--
but merely hold the money that
won't buy you happiness--
but somehow--
the other day i bought that orange purse
and the weight on my shoulders is now in color


18 September 2009

any time you need a smile just look at this photograph : and have a good weekend



then—
her laughter
shattered my silence—
a faint light
flickered in darkness
as pieces of her laughter
fell—
sparkled
--reflected
danced—
touched me
--gently
let them fall
laughter
and her eyes big
–gleamed with
something else to
tell me on another day
as her nose scrunched
and the corners of her mouth
could no longer contain
her laughter

(for abby)


 photos : by c
(for more visit my ever-growing fickr)



bon week-end x c

16 September 2009

science is the new black (now a series)















so until my smart science sister has that science blog of hers i told you about up and running (yes it's still in 'development' phase) i'm going to do my own version of vague-she'll-laugh-at-me-science-ish posts until she finally can't take it anymore and gets so embarrassed for me that she just decides on a title for her authentic science blog, registers it, and writes her first entry (which, by the way, i encouraged her to write about when she recently explained to my parents how to make a home-remedy disinfectant using a bottle of vodka-- or at least-- that was the story they gave me when i found the empty bottle of really old vodka on the kitchen counter, that's what they claimed to have used it for.)


and since science is the new black, today my vague science-ish topics will be as follows :
(because i personally believe that in science organization and lists are probably important)

• the book my sister is reading
• a quote from darwin (that i got from my sister)
• the effects of medications on creativity (a personal anecdote from yours truly)



the book my sister is reading right now sounds fascinating, i'm actually dying to read it. and that never happens when she's reading about proteins or cells. this book literally combines our two passions, our two ways of looking and thinking and understanding, our two worlds of thought-- literature and science, poetry and uh-- you know-- science... just kidding. but seriously it sounds like an clever and involved book that she will read slowly and digest every detail and i will read sentence by sentence and get such inspiration with each sentence that i'll stop to write for a day and them come back the next day to read the following sentence. the book is called proust was a neuroscientist by jonah lehrer a young writer who has now got my attention. i'm going to pick up this book in the next few days.



next on our agenda is something i keep thinking about, and she (my sister) keeps thinking about -- and i'll let you think about it now. it's her 'status' online, a quote by darwin. read it. over and over.



"it is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change"
charles darwin



and lastly, since we're discussing neuroscience and change, we can touch on the recent happenings in my headache saga. this new treatment i've been on (aka the reason for my blog absence, twitter disappearance and unprecedented block of the writing kind) is an anti seizure medication, the latest method in migraine prevention. but here's what i've noticed. (other than the obvious side effect of losing my thoughts in mid-sentence-- everything just goes on pause--- the ideas and words evaporate and i completely forget what i was saying) it's as though it has literally stopped the 'seizures' of thought, of passion and inspiration in my head. let me insert here, poetic surges of inspiration and passion and thought, because other things like focus on work and developing curriculum for my writing students has increased, productivity and creativity in this area has expanded, but where, i keep asking myself, are my desires to immerse myself and wade out too deep in poetic words and flashes of haiku that stop every other happening in the world, every other thought, poems that come over me like-- (see this is where the words would have come over me, or simply flowed from my fingertips and metaphorically showed you the arrival of the poems, instead, there's a pause--- a slight hollow buzz) or perhaps i'm putting too much pressure on myself and i'm still in the adjustment phase. i know. the words are in here, but perhaps a seizure of words isn't so bad every once in a while, when all of a sudden i fall down because this idea hits me like-- well like-- well-- you know--





















the first in the science is the new black series : here : the beginning of the end some might call it, my sister might call it etc...

x c