Carrie Bailey Allen's Blog, page 3
January 12, 2016
The Author and The Persona
Earlier this year a guy I dated in college, asked me how to be popular. Online. He wanted lots and lots of people following him so he could look more important.
Naturally, he works in foreign affairs. He would never admit otherwise, but it wasn’t so he could help other people. He’s also been interested in art. He asked me how to do that, too.
I’ve never had answers to questions like these. I don’t know anything about art. When I was younger, I thought good art was putting a dollar bill on the end of a fishing line and hanging it over the balcony at my friends apartment that faced the college row.
1/3 of the people laughed when I told them I was fishing for capitalists
1/3 of the people pretended they couldn’t see it and walked past
1/3 were angry if not before I explained what I was doing, certainly after
I tried different types of lure, but the results always ended up the same. And when I left my pole dangling out of reach to have cheap beer and homemade wines, two boys were running and jumping at it when I returned. But, they left quickly.
I guess that’s the most important lesson about art. In writing. In painting. In living. If you are as much yourself as humanely possible, then it becomes art. You break the barrier between normal life and having fun. You make a persona. You are more sad than sad. More serious than serious.
More real than real.
I don’t know anything about art even though people react to my talent in the same proportion as they did my dollar bill when I was in college. And the same holds true for my writing. The only difference between me and my ex-boyfriend is that I don’t wait for permission to be myself and I am ready for the consequences.
But, those 1/3 who laugh and those that play along. How anyone behave the way they’re supposed to behave when it could be so much more interesting.
January 11, 2016
3 Good Reasons to Follow + 3 Good Reasons Unfollow
After doing an inventory, I found about two thousand people who were dragging down my social media experience or simply not adding to it. So, I did a MASSIVE purge based on the following criteria:
1. You RETWEET with spammy hashtags - I can only see the cover o...
December 25, 2015
Ten Dollar Amazon Gift Card Raffle
I don't really celebrate unless someone pins me down and forces me to participate, which happened. So, I got a gift card. And I don't really have needs, because I'm so devoted to being a minimalist that I just couldn't think of anything I needed from Amazon except books and a Caran D'Ache Leman Matt Black Pen, but if I bought more books, my to-read pile would be digitally unfathomable. And since I prefer to read independent and small press, I'd probably...
December 24, 2015
3 Reasons I Just Unfollowed 2K #writers and 3 Reasons I Didn't
After doing an inventory, I found about two thousand people who were dragging down my social media experience or simply not adding to it. So, I did a MASSIVE purge based on the following criteria:
1. You RETWEET with spammy hashtags - I can only see the cover o...
December 23, 2015
Festivus 2015: Why You Should All Ditch Christmas and Other Grievances
Happy Festivus!If you're not familiar with this holiday, my first grievance is that you're already on your computer, it's 2015 for a little while still and you can look it up yourself. Do I always have to provide the links?
I've only been back in the United States for a year, but after living as an expat and becoming an incurable minimalist, I've got to tell you what a disappointment this has been.
About the food, this is bullshit. I can't believe people have to pay $1.99 per pound for spaghett...
December 17, 2015
'Tis the Season for MORE Minimalism and a Little DIY Personal Care
It's important to unders...
October 9, 2015
The New Book of Genesis: A Post-Apocalyptic Version
Usually I just keep things like this in my back story notes, but a lot of people contributed its development and I'd love to hear any feedback or reflections.
Before the beginning, there was no...
Essay: A Post-Apocalyptic Version of Genesis
Usually I just keep things like this in my back story notes, but a lot of people contributed its development and I’d love to hear any feedback or reflections.
Before the beginning, there was nothing. Space and time lacked dimension. Consequently, there was no matter and that mattered to no one, because there was no one there to observe it.
And the nothing was the great mystery, which in its mystery divided into the animate and inanimate, that which had the power to observe itself and the part of itself that was to be observed. And it was aware of itself as something that had caused itself to come into being. And it knew causality. It knew time.
There was now a before and after within its observation of itself. And in the process of observing these new elements, it drew in what was observed and released what was doing the observing into that which was being observed. And it knew this relationship to itself as motion. And it knew space through this motion.
And the new motions gathered energy, which increased through space and time. And the great mystery was repelled and attracted to what it knew as that which was moving and that which was not moving. And it knew matter and it had mass.
And the separate parts of the great mystery continued to factor into more parts. Though knowing before and after, the great mystery also knew them as having been one whole. With each division it observed the process of separation and previous combination in its memory, an observation of before. And it recognized the parts did not equal more or less than before. And they usually took the shortest distance in space moving away from each other.
But, the great mystery was attracted to the memory of its original form and repelled by the constant motion of its own parts. And the repulsion became a will and the will was a force of fear. The observer focused its will on the before and the parts of the great mystery that were matter pulled back together. And it exploded. And it knew gravity and emotion.
And with its new will, the great mystery was immediately attracted itself. It designated itself divine and all other things profane. And observing inward, it experienced fear at that which was not divine. And the will of the great mystery in its great fear exploded. And the new parts of the observer began to observe independently as the motion of the energy separated them and the new gravity and emotions of the new wills drew them together in love until tiny bits of observation and matter reformed as consciousnesses. And there was life.
And the new forms of life began observe their environment, to unitize and name the plethora of parts that had once been the great mystery, in processes called language and math. Matter flowed through the consciousnesses of life and those consciousnesses were drawn together and pushed apart, separately and infinitely through space time, developing incredible complexities. But, no consciousness could observe the whole, being only parts of the whole. But, they were attracted to other parts and with their will they began to selectively reproduce.
And the parts that were life began to perceive themselves and were repulsed by their separation from the whole. And they expanded their observation into space or time and their own nature, attracted to the nature of the whole that surrounded them. But, as they observed more and more of the whole their own consciousness lost cohesion. And through a process of symbolic representation, the powerful observers began to simplify the impossible awareness of the whole of the great mystery. They made themselves stronger with increasingly complex symbols in art, math and language. And among these life forms were humans.
And so it was natural for humans to be attracted and repulsed by the symbols of the other humans as they resembled the whole of the great mystery that was both attracted and repulsed by itself and the process that brought it all into being. And it was natural to for humans to turn their symbolic representations on all the mysteries they could observe in their environment and within themselves. And the humans knew the philosophies, the arts and the sciences.
And the moderns made the technologies to control their environment and each other out of fear and attraction to the symbols. And with the technologies observed the nature of the universe farther and farther until humanity itself developed a collective consciousness called history, and then they lost cohesion and exploded, which was known as the apocalypse.
What remained of the moderns drew together in self preservation with an awareness of the rudimentary principles of universal pulsation. And never again would they tempt the forces of nature by thinking too deeply about anything.
September 29, 2015
What Coffee Means to Me
I admit my obsession and I aim to exceed at it, which has been greatly aided by friends both online and off. It's a source of humor, comfort and absurdity and the central focus of my book series, Immortal Coffee.
Coffee is more than a drink to me.
The moment of the day that lasts, coffee rep...
What Coffee Means to Me
A good coffee day in Chile
The first piece of writing I had published was an Ode to Nescafe inspired by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and the hours I spent sipping Nescafe from demitasse cups late at night with my friends in Santiago.I admit my obsession and I aim to exceed at it, which has been greatly aided by friends both online and off. It’s a source of humor, comfort and absurdity and the central focus of my book series, Immortal Coffee.
Coffee is more than a drink to me.
The moment of the day that lasts, coffee represents everything quiet and peaceful. Drinking it, I am soothed by the memories of people who have mattered to me. All our laughter is felt as present in that moment.
My obsession with coffee begin very early on.
My mother married a tyrant when I was about four years old. Also a coffee drinker. He wanted to rear his step-children like he trained his dogs. But, fear and food do not inspire canine-style loyalty in small human children. As his bitterness about that grew, I started running away. Over and over.
To me, his coffee was a sort of symbol of power and self-determination. He could have it. I could not touch it. I wanted it.
At thirteen, I started buying and drinking coffee from the supermarket by my high school on the Oregon coast. Empowering. It tasted like freedom. I still associate the salty sea air, warm coffee and the sound of rain with hope.
I started university young and had my son. He called his mother’s coffee, chompy, and seemed to understand its primary role in my life almost at birth. I treasure a video of him at two years old stealing my coffee, running around the full length of my aunt’s house and giggling like a maniac as I chased him. When his father died in an accident, I measured time between the pain in moments of relief that I experienced when having my morning coffee. At that point, it became routine.
I calculated, before graduating from university, that I had spent at least ten thousand dollars on coffee from a small drive thru in the parking lot by my house. The baristas accommodated me by making an 8 oz soy mocha iced with only a drop of chocolate and two beans. They had my coffee ready as soon as they saw my car.
Traveling
But, I had to leave the coffee shops of Oregon behind to travel and the habit that had comforted me, because a routine that shackled me to my hometown. I struggled. Cried. Embarrassed by it, but too desperate to change. On a short trip to Virginia, I begged shops to make my coffee with soy milk that I purchased and brought to them. It was a crippling addiction to the routine. Not the caffiene.
Eventually, I accepted I had to change. I moved to South American and learned to drink instant. Liberated, I fell in love with the small cups and when out around town, the cafe cortados. Most of all, I loved the conversations with my new friends. And my students at the university, I sent to purchase coffee for me during class. I held office hours at the Starbucks across the street. If I could survive on instant, I could travel anywhere.
On my return to Oregon, my regular coffee shop had trained its newest barista to make my drink during my absence. With the two beans. After ten years of arriving ten minutes after I woke up, they had every confidence I would return and make my daily appearances again. Within a year, I was gone again and learning to drink long blacks in New Zealand.
I suppose it was inevitable that I brought the coffee drinking theme into my writing, because it embodies everything I want to inspire. I want my work to drag people through adversity, but to never lose sight of the smallest hopes that can be grown and developed into strengths that later carry us toward the dreams we choose to pursue when conducted with moderation.
While working in libraries, I’ve had many people come and tell me their dark experiences. The library provides a safe hiding place to go when life gets rough. Books can mean everything to readers. The connection to people we may never meet is almost otherworldly as if by sharing our perceptions, our experience and our imagination, we transfer our strength and fortitude.
I have certainly experienced that from great authors.
We often say we love books, but that is utterly inaccurate. Some books are dumb or boring or offensive. There are books that cannot be loved. It’s what is in the books that we love. And once, having fallen in love with the form of the book, we can still trace the origin of that affection to the content.
Coffee is the same. A symbol of strength and hope and an addictive behavior I overcame, coffee is just a symbol.
The smell and the beautiful warm brown liquid represents my endless faith that serenity is always within reach.
Happy National Coffee Day!
