The Mirror Shakes

Music: "24" by Jem (off of "Ultraviolet" soundtrack)

I'm contemplating focusing this blog on the random things that entire my brain while adding on another that focuses on Sci-fi and Fantasy. Reviews/news of movies, writers, graphic novels, books, shows, etc. It's something that is rooted in me. I'm not really sure how I got into Sci-fi and Fantasy. No one in my family really likes it. An aunt might but I've never talked to them about it. It's just always been something that fascinated me. What a dystopian novel can do to stir up a city. I'm getting Battle Royal and I'm so excited to read it. Of course my mother was worreid since it was nicknamed the 'Middle School Massacre'. It was banned for it's dystopian view of the government in Japan at the time as well as the blatant violence. No offense but if a story is going to be about a bunch of kids being taken away by the government to fight each other it's going to be violent. However there is a difference between violence for the sake of violence and violence that has a reason. Sci-fi and Fantasy can do that sometimes. In the right setting the violence that could potentially make you squirm also offers the questions of 'Why a I squirming? Yet I'm ok with captiol punishment?'

Unfortunately I do have sad news in the midst of this post. I spent a little over two hours going through every single Fantasy/Sci-fi novel and I didn't walk away with anything. OK so that's just sad only to me. :P Problem is I knew what I wanted to read but I couldn't find it. Something that was adventure, humanity, other-worldly, with perhaps a hint of steampunk. I don't know the steampunk hint always changed within me. When I walked away from the store with only the recent issue of Empire magazine, I realized it was too demanding what I wanted. I wanted the novel of all novels. Which only made me want to rush home to write it. It's rough...I want something substantial. Something thick and good. As if all the best parts of Ultraviolet, Aeon Flux (not that those two were good movies...they both failed), 1984, Mirror's Edge, Brave New World, Farenheight 451, with a touch of American Gods and Good Omens...if they all just got together and had one huge love baby I bet it'd be a novel of novels. I don't know but I get excited just thinking about it.

Later, as I was walking back to my dorm I had to pass a coffee shop that people like me tend to hang out at. When walking by a boy I used to go to high school with was there. To be completely and rudely honest I didn't recognize the guy to save my life. He graduated two years before me. It wasn't until he was telling a story about his mother and he used his name in the story did I know who it was and suddenly it all came back to me. And even then...
Anyway, he was saying how he recently graduated this past spring. He majored in Antrhopology and Philosophy. He was currently homeless and had no job. He recently was given money since he finished school in three and a half years but before that he survived by dumpster diving. I suddenly was pulled back to reality at the weirdest time and incredibly saddened that someone as nice as him was going through that. He said he was fine now but it had been rough. It's just all...fucked up these days. I can't even fully blame the economy. I blame society.

Society has changed over years. That's a given. But the way it changes it always convinces itself that it is becoming advanced. As if the new technology and paved roads is what makes a city the ideal city. But there are more to things than pretty buildings, hun. True artists do their best to hold a mirror to the face of society. We scream and shout and flail our arms about. But an artist can only hold onto that mirror for so long. Another fledling, fresh, new, doe-eyed artist comes by and relieves the burden of the current holder of the mirror. However, the sad truth of it all is that these artists can hold the mirror and yell at society to look at itself, look at what it's doing to it's people, show that if they don't change they are going to destroy themselves. An artist cannot force society to actually look in the mirror. Society has as much free will as the artist choosing to hold the mirror. It can easily look at everything but the glass before itself.

After dinner with friends we went to support another friend in his comic book signing/selling. We all obviously bought one of his to support him. Looking at the work he and his fellow class-mates did was truly beautiful. They all told stories and the drawings were really nicely done. It got me even more excited to work on my comic series with a friend. The entire time she and I were talking with each other about other things our characters could do. It was fun and it was nice to see that despite the fact all of the original artists are starting to stumble a bit with that mirror they're holding there is still a whole new generation that's just breaking out.

Well I'm off to create said blog. So this one will focus on random thoughts while the other is strictly Sci-fi and Fantasy. Also I'm off to make paper snowflakes and maybe watch Serenity. ^_^ I leave you with the link to the fan-made music video to the song I mentioned above. Just because it is rather epic. I think if the love child ever was optioned for a movie Milla Jovovich would have to star as the main character. Just simply for the fact she is Milla Jovovich. She's the queen of Sci-fi movies.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxFYnnjk8cU

Hasta luego,
Alejandra

"It is a fool's perogative to utter the truths no one else will speak."
~Neil Gaiman

Search For Inspiration: Originality vs. Familiarity

Music: "Hero" by Regina Spektor

People walk distracted with their own voices clouding up their minds. They don't bother checking their watches anymore. They move freely and easily with a sense of direction I often find myself envying. Sometimes I listen to them while other times I play music as if it were a background noise filler to an ever-moving silent movie. Passing by coffee houses-- one trying to outdo its neighbor in flair and style-- I see people drinking tea and coffee, eating baked goods and sitting idly by as the chaos falls around them in nice little rainbow fragments. Fragments that if they only looked at them with a slight tilt of their head they can finally see the truth in those words that they say.

Impulse strikes first, I find. No one ever truly thinks before they speak. At least I have never met, nor have I seen, someone who does. People react first and then keep moving. Thinking often comes later, if it comes at all. Everything moves so fast. So many changes and updates it can make my head spin round.

Finding insperation in reality causes me to feel jumbled on the inside--mentally. Often I wonder if my brain just isn't on the same wavelength as theirs. I watch how people dress and I watch how they move their head, look at people, or even enunciate certain vowels when speaking. This often makes me feel like a stalker but I suppose I'm not since I'm not watching one particular person. Nor am I following them. When they get up to leave I stay behind.

People change in my mind as I blend their traits with another's. I listen for names that sound different. Borrow letters from a boy's named Adam and a girl named Allison. Combine them together in sweet embrace to find the name Addison.

And yet, deep down, in the midst of my playing, nothing feels unique anymore. It has all been done before by another. Is it true when my terrible Professor once said "There are no new stories" ? All that does is take my hopes away from me.

And I'm brought back down to reality again.


~~

Imgaes come, and Images go.
The sweet song of the night is the only one who knows.

Distraction Is the Opiet Of the Masses.

Music: "Soil, Soil" by Tegan and Sara

Well this is me being distracted when I should be studying for my Sociology exam tomorrow. The class focuses on Sex and Gender and it should be easy enough but I haven't really touched my notes yet. That is not good. My brain just keeps rejecting me. It's like "You want to study? Yeah? That's funny." And then proceedes to stick its tongue out at me. Technically I just have this exam and then the paper to make the class officially an honors option and then I am done!!

I took one exam today and it was in Spanish. I'm embarassed to say I am taking spanish but I did. I do know how to speak it fine. I can speak it fine with my family and understand what they say back to me...however I am terrible at writing it. And grammar always finds a way to come back and bite me in the ass. Yes I said bite. It bites hard and often leaves rabies and scars. I am Mexican, through and through, and my family still holds close ties with all of the traditions. I'm hoping that I'll be excused for taking these classes for trying to get better since Spanish was not my first language, and English majors are required to have up to two years of Spanish. I luckily, am done now since I tested pretty far ahead. In general I think I'll be alright grade-wise. The problem is when colleges--or any school for that matter--teaches you Spanish they always teach you Spanish as spoken in Spain. Believe it or not it is so different from Spanish in Mexico. It's like trying to teach someone English but they way they speak it in England rather than the Engilsh in the U.S. It's crazy how it goes sometimes.

Speaking of England I was accepted to study literature in London. I need to get that paperwork in before I go on break but I might not do that till tomorrow. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I've never been really far away from my family and out of reach of anyone I know. This will certainly be an experience. I have been to London before so hopefully that will prove beneficial to me than if I was going away cold.

I just realize I've never explained why I named my blog the way I did. *fails.* It is called 'Dancing on the Edge' because my mother said that to me a few years back. The way I live life and treat life I've always been on the edge of things. When I was little I was always on the edge of life and death. When I was away from the mess and with normal friends and family members, I was always on the edges of different social 'cliques' and on the edge between childhood and being and adult. Now I'm still on the edge but it's a bit unclear. Things always are foggy when you're in the middle of them. You never truly know why things happen to you, why you meet the people you do, until you are older and far away from the situation at hand. The 'mirror, mirror' line is from a book I am currently working on. It's entitled, Mirror Images.

Which, speaking of Mirror Images, I have decided to run away and hide for a weekend. I need to finish the book. I knowh the different steps of getting published...I just need to actually follow through and try for once. I'm always second guessing myself and worried that no one will want to read what I write. It didn't help when my Intro to Fiction wirting prof. ripped into fantasy novelists and how stupid/terrible they were. Brilliant. I need a mentor...bad. Learning to write via novels can only take a girl so far.

Food. iYo tengo mucho hambre! Y...I need to study. XP

Hasta luego,
Alejandra

(PS) I intend to do two types of entires everyday. One that is simply on life and the things happening around me during the day. Another on simple musings.

"I feel like a fool
So I'm going to stop troubling you
Buried in my yard
A letter to send to you
And if I forget
Or god forbid die too soon
Hope that you'll hear me
And know that I wrote to you"
~from: "Soil, Soil" by Tegan and Sara (Album: The Con)

A Girl Anachronism.

Music: "Girl Anachronism" by The Dresden Dolls

To be completely honest I'm not exactly the type of girl to keep an online blog. I'm more of a handwritten leather-bound type of gal. However, Em asked me and I figured why not. It'd probably even be fun. So pardon the newbie-ness of my posts. Also my blog is gonna be pretty plain until I can fix it up with fun html codes and such. Alas, I won't be able to play until after finals.

I suppose an intro if anything is a nice way to start...

Hello! I am Alejandra. The 'j' is pronounced like an 'h' in spanish. I'd like to say I'm from 'down the rabbit hole' but let's be honest, we all are down there thanks to our current society. Therefore I hope you can be content with the U.S. I am 19 and a sophmore in college majoring in English and History major, I work at my school's newsaper editing articles and hope to grow up to become the female version of Neil Gaiman.

Neil Gaiman...what can I say to have that make more sense? I honestly have a couple of heroes. Neil Gaiman is my hero in terms of writing. He is the most brillant writer alive. I say alive because there are other writers I look up to such as Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Emily Bronte and Alexandre Dumas...however they are sadly all dead. Neil Gaiman changed my life and saved me. His work brought me back out of a sadness and depression and taught me not only new ways to write my stories but new ways of looking at life. That is why you will see so many pictures of Death from The Sandman graphic novels by Neil Gaiman, on my page. Who knew I'd learn about life and its values from a character who is supposed to represent the end of everything?

Audrey Hepburn may be more of an 'icon' but she is still someone I look to. She was very classy and a talented actress. I have seen everything she has been in and those movies can never grow old. I hold her work closer to my heart than any other movie I have seen. Other movies I love, I love because of how they were artistically done or written. Or...I'm just a geek...which is why I love Serenity and Star Trek so much. XP

Music wise I love music that is not exactly mainstream Top 40s. I love artists like Cristina Scabbia in Lacuna Coil or Amanda Palmer in The Dresden Dolls. Those two women are brilliant writers and performers. The World/Inferno Friendship Society brings me so much insperation for my writings. I'm fine with anyone listening to mainstream Top 40s. But honestly...a good set of lyrics can take you so much further. Also...whatever happeend to an instrument? It seems those are now lost to the music of today. Give me classic rock (like Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan), hard/punk rock (like Lacuna Coil), and Punk Cabaret (The Dresden Dolls and World/Inferno) any day.

If you're ok with odd things, random outbursts and commentary, loud people, and stuff that is just plain...different. We will get along swimmingly.

For the time being, I should sleep. I have to get up bright and early to kick off my wonderful finals week. *coughs*

Hasta luego,
Alejandra

"I dont necessarily believe there is a cure for this
so I might join your century but only as a doubtful guest
I was too precarious removed as a caesarian
behold the worlds worst accident
I AM THE GIRL ANACHRONISM"
~From: "Girl Anachronism" by The Dresden Dolls (Album: The Dresden Dolls)

(PS) To get credit over with: Picture of the woman in the mirror is from the graphic novel/game Mirror's Edge. Screenshot if from Electronic Arts. all icons were created by iconomicon on LJ. So don't sue guys your work is awesome. I'm just a fan.