MouthNoises: Goodbye!

We are off the cloud and out into the world. Goodbye NPR, we loved you.

I will miss you all tremendously.

MouthNoises 3: Uncertain Times

What to do, what to do...

Stop/Loss

MouthNoises 2: Intern Economics

Intern Edition 08

Five Year Old Photographer

My cousin Xavier, "act like it's a telescope, act like it's a microphone, I'm a good aimer right Becky?" Yup, you are!

MouthNoises: Premiere

For more fun content check out NPR's Intern Edition Fall 08 Blog: http://www.npr.org/about/nextgen/internedition/fall08/blog/

Halloween

Halloween in Fairfax Station, Va.,  Elena's first trick or treating expedition.

Hidden Pond, VA

Joshua Tree

From the Mojave Desert you reach up to the sky 

twisting and turning, multiplying, growing, seeking slowly, 

slowly you set your fragile roots in the arid soil 

to provide support and life

you grow slowly, slowly, 

and your quest becomes a heavy burden 

Oh Joshua tree 

stand strong as the top sways, as your life grows, 

you stretch and stretch with your swords drawn to protect, 

protect yourself, 

but when you bloom, glorious, beautiful, 

you allow life in, life, love, growth, struggle...

But not all survive when your burden becomes too much to bear 

instead of falling you pull out your swords and surrender life 

back to the Earth, the dry, deserted, arid, earth. 

Fragile, strong, growing, searching, loving, slowly, slowly. 

Joni: This Flight Tonight

Look out the left the captain said

The lights down there, that's where we'll land

I saw a falling star burn up

Above the Las Vegas sands

It wasn't the one that you gave to me

That night down south between the trailers

Not the early one

That you can wish upon;

Not the northern one

That guides in sailors

Oh starbright, starbright

You've got the lovin' that I like, all right

Turn this crazy bird around

I shouldn't have got on this flight tonight...

I'm drinking sweet champagne

Got the headphones up high

Can't numb you out

Can't drum you out of my mind

They're playing goodbye baby, baby, goodbye

Ooh, ooh, love is blind

Up go the flaps, down go the wheels

I hope you got your heat turned on baby

I hope they finally fixed your automobile

I hope it's better when we meet again baby.

Graduate

The Class of 2008 

That's my sister, the pensive looking one, at her high school graduation. She leaves for college on Sunday. I would like to think I've paved the way... But even with college our polarities shine through. She's already packed. I habitually opt for a more last minute approach, like jamming things into my life-for-three-months suitcase four hours before my plane left for London. She's already met her roommate and didn't experience the panic/fear of the first phone call across the country only to be hung up on before I could ask who should bring the microwave. All her books have been ordered at discount prices online, that's just a hundred times smarter than I was, lugging my pre-packed sticker price box of books back to the dorm and my first plunge into bookstore account debt. Maybe, the pure act of doing everything the exact opposite of me is a result of me doing it all first. But really, it's not at all about me, I'm going to give it up. I just hope she remembers liquor before beer you're in the clear. 

Sustainability

What if everyone planted a flower box and stuffed it full of vegetables? There is something incredibly gratifying about watching something you tend grow, you worry about it, labor over it, water it religiously, rig elaborate do it yourself irrigation systems when you go away on vacation, and talk about its progress with each other. Everyone, everywhere can grow something, be it squash in the flower box hanging over the balcony railing or basil on the kitchen window sill.

In the spirit of sustainability and consciousness: 

http://www.worldwithoutus.com/

http://www.betterplace.com/

If I had $300...

If I had $300 and an apartment, I would buy this and host a PACT, take portraits of all the guests and be in love. I was 25 minutes early for my interview at The Gap... It was hot out so I decided to walk into Pottery Barn to cool off and found this... What a happy depressing accident of consumerism...

See it Here

Michael Kragh

Become a fan:

http://www.myspace.com/michaelkraghmusic

http://www.reverbnation.com/michaelkragh

Summerlin/Boca Park: Room for rent

I waited on hold for 45 minutes. I rearranged the spice cabinet, emptied the dishwasher, unpacked my things, arranged a new desk area, contemplated putting my phone on speaker and down on the counter to wash the dishes, I thought about hanging up, but hesitated as the recorded voice repeated "your call will be processed in the order it was received, please don't hang up and call back, this will only further your wait." 

He came home between tours, a smudge of dirt on his cheek, flustered. We had a conversation while the phone stayed pressed to my ear, he came over and kissed me hello, I stood at the end of the counter watching him, unclear why he was home in the middle of the day. He inhaled deeply and left and came back. He forgot his bike, I waited on hold.

It didn't feel like 45 minutes but I became impatient. I dared myself to hang up and when I did I felt bad but better because I could choose not to wait because I'm not yet one of those women who has to, in panic, in remorse, in desperation for the next available customer service representative at the state welfare office just to keep the lights on.

I wonder if he was surprised, like me, when the automated message service called us poor.

Peace Studies

Kids on a trolley bus, San Francisco, CA.

Peace Studies

Example 1:

http://www.viiphoto.com/showstory.php?nID=760

San Francisco

I found Kerouac's The Subterraneans at a used bookstore on a side street I couldn't find again somewhere between a rise and fall of a San Francisco side street. I bought it for $4, the worn cover with it's original price of $1.50 laughing at me. The pages crumbled when I carelessly tossed it in my bag, I became more careful and noticed the scotch tape holding together the spine. I found my way back into the stream of Jack, Mardou and Leo, bop, tea, mania, existentialism, careless love, selfishness, destructive drunk nights, lovers, hipsters, machismo...

I was halfway done on the plane back East. I was going to mail it to a friend at the end of the summer, before I forgot it in the seat back pocket of row 20.

Patriotic

While driving from Vegas to the Oregon border and back we passed several gas stations, many with fluctuating price tags, but it was the Patriot station we stumbled upon on our way through the roller-coaster hills of San Francisco that became the most symbolic of the trip. All through the state of California where the gas prices for regular unleaded peaked at 5.29 a gallon, Patriot gas stations beckoned drivers. Back home there aren't many uniquely named gas stations, just your general Exxons and BPs and Mobiles, but out here the chains are more creative. Patriot. Be a Patriot and spend 5+ dollars on gas. It's patriotic to consume fossil fuels. All hail the red, white, and blue. As we sped through a ghost town in the heart and heat of Central California where the Sierra Nevada meets Death Valley, low and behold our trusty Patriot. Run down, with a sign at eye level from my passenger seat, no customers, no snack store, just the word PATRIOT on the side of a white placard dangling from a white wash two by four. 

Back in Vegas the gas stations have names like Terribles, Grumpys, and Rebel. I can't help but think they got it right here, as I walk through the parking lot grumbling about the terrible heat and refusing to drive the car as much for it's lack of a.c. as my frustration with driving a standard in stop and go traffic. In Vegas desperation hangs out of landscaping trucks at red lights and in the shade on metal bus stop benches that burn exposed thighs, the win big jackpot crap shoot failure exists in every wrinkled brow and leathered skin, the american dream rests on penny slots and $50 black jack tables on a line of pavement constantly clogged with drunks and foreigners and vacationers and the oddly placed child holding hands with a parent or guardian who clutches a football shaped goblet of 151 and strawberry in the other. To live here, outside of the strip of synthetic dreams and bright lights and gluttony, is to live in the fringe of desperation, to call the gas station Patriot with a graphic of stars and stripes would be absurd.

Midwest Express

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyld=92633264

Frank, it's a Perfect Day for Bananafish

Dear Frank,

I wonder if you are still alive. I wonder if your wife is still alive. I really liked her.When I showed up at your house at 9am she told me bluntly she was a bitch and not a morning person.  She also wouldn't let me take her picture. But when it was time for her bath with Ellie from Hospice you didn't seem to mind me. I liked hearing about your adventures in the Navy, I could imagine you classically handsome on the boardwalk of the New Jersey shore. I think you liked telling me and liked remembering for a stranger, until you had to get up from the table with both hands after two attempts, that's when you looked down and shook your head and your voice trembled as you said, "It's really tough, it's really tough getting old." I wanted to tell you, I see your face often. I question my mortality, and that of those around me. I can't quite grasp the point, a faith without religion, a purpose in a future that fades to black. When we are dead and gone, when you are gone and your face stares back at me, this picture I took of you/from you, means what?

If today were a perfect day for banana fish there would be no need to mull over the "only" existential question, Salinger answered it swiftly in a hotel by the seaside and a revolver in a suitcase, and yet I can't get over a person ceasing to exist. Like the news report about a woman being hit by a car at a bus stop down the street, or the Amber alert on the way to California, "Child abduction Purple/Gold RV CA Lic.5GEW58" these senseless acts of ending the existence of a human being. Ceasing to exist. Dear Frank, thank you for letting me take a bit of you with me.

Sincerely,

Where the Sidewalk Meets the Trees and other Adventures

"Hey, why don't you get a job!"

I've been missing Syracuse a lot lately. Mostly in my dreams where familiar streets turn into ethereal collegiate byways of destiny in a lens of tweed and internal three-speeds and boys host dinner parties on second floor balconies of spaghetti and beer and Zeppelin is on the record player while Ali's making eggs.

Tapped Out

I read an article today in the June issue of National Geographic called "Tapped Out." The article is about the growing gap between supply and demand of oil around the world. The energy crisis is not new news, pretty much everywhere I turn these days it's becoming trendy to "go green." I'm beginning to wonder when the trend is forced to face reality will the eco-friendly commodity bust? People are turning the energy crisis for profit, like every good capitalist marketplace, but for how much longer? How will society react when it's no longer trendy to ride your bike to work but a necessity?

As the marketplace becomes increasingly crippled by the rising price of oil we will have to come face to face with our societal gluttony. The conclusion of the article was eerily prophetic: "Whatever the ceiling (peak oil production) turns out to be, one prediction seems secure: The era of cheap oil is behind us. If the past is any guide, the world may be in for a rough ride. In the early 1970s, during the Arab oil embargo, U.S. policymakers considered desperate measures to keep oil supplies flowing, even drawing up contingency plans to seize Middle Easter oil fields. Washington backed away from military tensions then, but such tensions are likely to reemerge. .. Countries like Saudi Arabia and other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries control 75% of the world's oil reserves."

And as a result will ultimately yield the most power as the developed and underdeveloped world becomes crippled as a result of their reliance on oil to survive. 

Ultimately, lifestyle HAS to change, not because it's the "in" thing to do, but because if we fail, if we set our feet and refuse to budge and declare independence from oil our country will see trying times that will place our liberties in peril. 

NYC

Killer Whales

I was swimming in the ocean. Killer whales began to surround me. I couldn't swim away. I was wearing all my clothes, jeans, I hate wet jeans, especially now when they make me slow. I can't get away. The tip of the whale comes up to me, the mouth, I try to clamp it shut with my hands, it's an uncontrollable, unavoidable moment like when a puppy attacks in play biting excitement. I'm not drowning, yet. I swim and swim for the surface. I am floating, suspended in the surrealism of the moment.