Roger Ebert just posted this compelling photo of "a hooker sitting in a window"...

Photo by Rosalind Solomon

Remain, Retreat, Revamp & Revisit

Streaming two different films simultaneously on my laptop, which seems only appropriate on such a cold and equinoxical Monday night. The first being Lars Von Trier's "Melancholia," which I've been intrigued with since the trailer came out this May. I'm finding it difficult to get past the prologue when images like THIS are played in underscore to the opening of Tristan and Isolde...

This film, if you culture vultures remember, is the one that got Von Trier in scalding water when he went on that deliciously offensive tangential tirade saying that "he sympathized with Hitler." Keeping that totally warm, fuzzy and humanizing sentiment at bay, I am surprised by how much I am enjoying this. I keep putting on pause as if to brace myself for doing a cannonball into a dunk tank of pirhannas... I have a feeling that is about to get pretty psychologically laborious.

I'm also watching a totally fascinating documentary portrait of the New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunningham New York, which makes me want walk down 7th avenue in orgami motifs and abandon all sense of boring, upscale fashion principles. Unfortunately, half of my pants are perforated with holes from the barbarous amount of walking that I do in this city. An accessory designer friend of mine, Ken Marcelle, told me yesterday at a BBQ that I had a utilitarian sense of fashion, which threw me off, since I don't want to be associated with that word, like, EVER. Nor do I want to give the impression that I'm somehow ABOVE the pursuit of personal aesthetics, even I tend to save my looks for when I am out performing gigs at night.

On that topic, I've become increasingly motivated to create my own performance pieces, free from the criteria of other collaborations I've been involved with as of late. There is a limit to what I'm willing to reveal about the work that I'm generating now, but this desire is new, exciting and induces within me a sense of danger and ecstasy that I haven't felt in awhile. The only way that it will ever come together is to take a less careful, cerebral approach to what I do... as Chuck Close says: "Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work."

That said, as I'm developing the themes and atomic complexion for what these new forms will take, a part of that will be making a record of what I consume - what repulses me - what I am trying to adapt into this new and empirical recognition of what it means to be human.

It's been YEARS I activated this blog. Since the summer of 2007, the world has changed. The internet has changed. My personal constitution has changed. I only have recently overcome the fear of googling myself, thinking that it will bring to light things that I'd rather not know in total neglect of the fact that other people have unadulterated access to it. Last August, when I finally worked up the courage to type my name into a search engine, I noticed that this blog was the first to come up since my personal website was taken down.

Now that TrystanTrazon.com is being renovated, I really hope to use this a companion to the site. The intention here is less to fastidiously control my sense of self-narrative and projection and more to SHARE what I deem interesting... what I am seeing, thinking, remembering, consuming... should you or any inquiring mind care to know. As Nora Ephron said in her interview with Terry Gross, if it takes longer to write than a half an hour, it's not a blog... it's something else.

And on that note of something else, I am clocking in.

Love & Other Reasons Firefighters Become Insomniacs,

T.TRAZON

After 4 long years, I have decided to resuscitate this blog....

... and also, to skip the imperative post where I have to explain WHY.

BACK IN THE STATES (Be a slave to your inner voyeurism!!)

Click photo above to access Flickr account link documenting TRYSTAN'S EPIC CRUSADE THROUGH THE TRANSPACIFIC...

I Hate Jordan Catalano

There’s a tendency with most generations to wistfully idealize the decade in which they grew up and reference them with artifacts, then adapt them into our sense how things were, even if we missed out on them the first time. This is how I feel about My So Called Life, in spite of being in every way a child of the 90’s... though let’s face it: I was, at most 10 at the end of the grunge era, which left nowhere for my lumberjack angst, and probably explains why I force myself to listen to Crowded House when questioning my own integrity. I think that’s must be why we always find ourselves returning to coming-of-age-themes in the first place. They always provide us amplified expressions of the inner gaucheries and volatilities that we never REALLY got over, and never really will ever go away.

So now that I finished with the entire 5-disc series off of Netflix, I’ve been arguing with my friend Jeremy about something I think needs to be erased from the zeitgeist. I contend that JORDAN CATALANO DOES NOT DESERVE ICONIC BEEFCAKE DOMINANCE OVER THE MID-NINETIES. This is not because I don’t find Jared Leto attractive (although he looks eerily like my third ex, thereby evoking indifference), but because Jordan Catalano easily made for the most annoying, pacifist love interest in the history of television... the part of it I’ve seen, anyway. Everything from his watery, dumb gaze to his dithering makeout sessions under the stairwell with Angela. There is nothing James Dean about him, which come to think of it, might sort of be the point. May expand on this later, if I don’t completely manage to make myself fall asleep when I start...

In brief, life is busy. I’m the dramaturge for Does Anyone Know Sarah Paisner?, written by the one and only Jenny Lane, and also scored music to the trailer which can be seen here:



Outside of work, I’m currently developing a rather large project which is too fragile to be discussed. Training for the 2008 marathon. Saving up for a possible trip to Tokyo to be taken in March or Mid-April. Lining up gigs. Trying to find room in my life to start dating again without officially becoming “someone who dates”. Saw a woman get stabbed on the Q train last week. Oh, and that might be perfect note to end on...

It’s snowing in Park Slope.

Love & Other Animals Aboard the Arc...

T.TRAZON

Steps Toward Fulfilling New Years Resolution

Mr. Toole,
I am sending you a search application packet in another email. It takes many people time to get to the “right place” to search and you do have to be open to any kind of result. It is not a problem to do searches with an out of state petitioner, all of our searches are conducted by email/phone/mail. The search fee is $350, which can be made in two payments, one at the start of the search and one when the case is ready to go to CI (about 3-4 months later). The average time for a search from start to finish is 4-6 months. The search fee includes all court and agency fees associated with obtaining your sealed adoption file, securing a court order to access these files and the services of a Confidential Intermediary who actually makes contact with your birth family to obtain a consent to contact before your identifying information can be exchanged. The hardest part for you is the waiting once you’ve returned payment and paperwork. It will seem like nothing is happening for about 10-12 weeks, then your CI calls when the case is assigned and things generally move much more quickly at that point.

I did take a peek at our birth registry and there is no entry for your birth date and place, which only means that no one has contacted our office searching for you previously. You should also register with the Soundex registry, which is the largest national registry at www.isrr.net. Look over the first email I sent you which includes the search info. packet and let me know if there are any thoughts, concerns or questions not covered. I will be out Friday and back in the office Monday 8:30 – 1:00.

WARMly,

Michelle Meeker

Taking a break from talking about politics...

XIAOCHANG: I would say that her wanting attention would be a fairly good indicator of her needing help
XIAOCHANG: she's not independent enough for that
ME: yeah. she's doing what children do when they don't have the communication skills to tell their parents what's wrong.
ME: i think britney just wants a cookie.