caroline contillo

So I’m off to my parents house in NJ, and then to rural Maine for about 10 days of hiking, boating, swimming and reading. No electricity, no wireless, no cell reception. See you guys on the 28th!

hello, but
not soon enough

udelco, originally uploaded by cyacopino.

This building you see here is an old farm house that used to house a thrift store called Udelco. I’d drive up route 303 in my old rust-colored Volvo 240 DL, (which I called the flying brick) and sift through dusty racks of old t-shirts and jeans. Udelco is closed now, and the building repurposed to serve as photography and art studios. I still love driving up route 303 when I’m home visiting my parents, even though the flying brick is long gone.

On Friday I will be leaving for a week’s worth of solitude in Maine. Not complete solitude, as I will be accompanied by most of my immediate family. But we will be on an island in Thee Middle Of Nowhere, without electricity. But before that there will be a series of irritating bureaucratic things to take care of. Like jury duty, a visit to the DMV, and the financial aid office of my school. I’m preparing my ass for a lot of sitting around and my patience for waiting.

There are some things this week that look interesting, though. Like Naomi Klein speaking at a local Barnes & Noble on the topic of her recent book The Shock Doctrine, which I posted about maybe a week ago.

Then there’s a Kombucha class at Brooklyn Kitchen. That stuff is so expensive and delicious that it would probably be wise to learn how to make my own, even if I am a little nervous about, like, contaminating the flora in my guts with carelessness.

As I sit here compiling this information, the soothing strains of mariah carey are wafting in through my living room window. or is that audible effluvia from newton creek? ah, synesthesia.

Short but sweet. I was going to film a dog training video that incorporated humor into the lessons. Then I found that a group of friends had already started filming a comedic dog training video. So I went by their shoot and threw huge water balloons full of sticky paint at them. It was pretty cool looking. It ended with laughter.

It was mundane enough at the beginning. I was taking the subway home and nodded off. It’s funny to me that I fell asleep even when already within the confines of a dream. But there I was, tired on a commute home, so I folded up my arms and closed my eyes.

When I awoke, the train was slowly making its way through a rural area. The train had lost its top, like something of a convertible, so that I was still sitting in my seat but could reach out and touch the foliage and the train ground slowly through the nocturnal setting. I then noticed that my visual perspective had changed, and i was looking down on the scene, seeing the train meander through the dips and valleys in the forrest. I also noticed that it was approaching the downtown of a small village. As the train approached my consciousness sank back into the seat. It pulled up through the town’s main thoroughfair. Just like the walls had disappeared from the train itself, the stores in the town had no front walls. Suddenly even the train itself was gone and I was standing in a completely empty general store.

Throughout the dream I was in someone of a panic, thinking “oh great. I fell asleep on the train and now I have no idea where I am! Is this long island or something?” But slowly I accepted my situation and walked around the dusty old store. When I got back to the cash register there was a girl in a black fur coat with a curly red bob haircut holding a small dog on a leash. I asked her if I could use her cell phone to call a car service and she pointed to a pay phone out on the street.

And then I woke up, in reality, to the sound of a marching band going by on the street below my bedroom window.

With a tragic turn of events, I have lost some of the sidebar goodies in a hasty wordpress upgrade. On the other hand, this upgrade will hopefully allow me to be more versatile in content. we shall see.

I plan on introducing a new feature starting tomorrow, wherein I use this blog to chronicle my nocturnal dreams (as opposed to the daytime sort, which are way more boring. i think almost %100 about having a porch and drinking unsweetened iced tea on it while i read a book). I’ve always had what I consider to be really interesting dreams that actually tend to impact my waking life in some way or another. The intention to record one’s dreams is often enough to increase recall, and thus increase the richness of dream content. So, starting tomorrow, this will become a dream diary of sorts. I will try to keep up with the same old content I always do but I figure this may prove entertaining for some and educational for me.

I just happened upon this righteously awful horror flick starring the inimitable Karen Black (in all of her voluptuous horror) called Burnt Offerings. It was like a combination of Poltergeist 2 and Amityville Horror.  Oh an BETTE DAVIS is the aunt. I’m a true sucker for a haunted house movie. I think it stems from my tendency to anthropomorphize architecture. Houses have personalities. So, like people, it makes sense that some of them should have reallysadistic ones.

So I’m currently interning for Reality Sandwich, a web magazine that I very much enjoy and am psyched to be involved with. Their 1 year anniversary is coming up and I’ll be helping out at this function:

===Saturday, July 12===

Evolver: Illuminations

Reality Sandwich, the cutting edge web magazine for transformational culture, invites you to join in its radiant one-year anniversary party. To celebrate this luminous night, we’re bringing together the glorious dreamers, ecstatic revelers, and visionary artists who make our fair city shine. Join us at the spacious Sandra Cameron Dance Center adorned in your brightest, most sparkling costumes and explore four rooms of exotic entertainment and enchanted activities.

DJ Room: Unleash your body to the high-energy Subcontintental bliss of Basement Bhangra’s Jesse Mann; the uninhibited EthnoMesh of Bulgarian Bar resident DJ Joro Boro; the funkalicious soulful house of Been Jammin; and folktronica artist Zack Hagan.

Cabaret Room: Open your heart to sensuous singing, seductive storytelling, on-the-fly beat-boxing, and ribald puppetry. MCed by Sister Mary Manhattan and Martin Dockery with performances by Americana blues trio Shanimal; Nikki Borodi’s Chakra Rock; David Moss Jazz Trio; Puppetry Burlesque; Acoustical Foreplay by Glen Ashlee; David “I am Another Yourself” Bryson; the angelic voice of Shannon, and more.

Activities Room: Engage your spirit in 3D and multimedia installations, interactive performance art, games and more. Featuring a video screening of the Cosmic Biofeedback of Eliott Edge’s and Dr. Strangelove’s “Positive Programming;”  Psychedelic Video Game Remixes and Interactive Video Art by Dr. Domino, Kaliptus and Æres; luminous 3D art by Kahlil and company; “On the Spot Blasphemy” by Matthew Daniel and his army of mechanical typewriters; I Ching divination; mind-centering Geometric Origami with Kamal Sunflower; Angels and Angles: Sacred Geometry with Basem Hassan; The Art of Sigil Magic with Mr. Domino; face painting and JAGUA Painted Tattoos with Kaliptus and Mr. Domino; tarot card readings by Æres.  Bring your own art pad to share and use.

In the Dome: Chill your mind and open your soul with Tibetan Bowl & Didj Massages by Azarai; Tantric Puja and Active Meditation with Najakat Kavish; “Blindfolded True Confessions.”  Bring pillows if you like.

Workshop Room: Deepen your soul through mystical, whimsical, and playful workshops including a Light Ceremony with NY Shamanic Circle; Argentine Tango with Sandra Cameron’s Amanda Luken; Jamye Waxman’s “Sexy Toys for Sexy People;” Jonathan Phillips’ “Sacred Warrior Workshop;” and Anthony Williams’ “Urban Tarot.”

The evening kicks off with a panel presentation, “Transformational Culture in the Digital Age” by Reality Sandwich’s Ken Jordan and Jonathan Phillips, then flows into a full-on night of fun and revelry. Tasty food and beverages available throughout the night.

Saturday, July 12
Sandra Cameron Dance Center
199 Lafayette St (one block south of spring between Kenmare & Broome)
(9pm-5am, $20)

To walk three long blocks to the north or west was to become surrounded by the skeletal remains of the Industrial Revolution. Low lying abandoned warehouses and functional factories went on for about a mile, drawing a high volume of illegal truck traffic through the scattered residential blocks. Beyond lied a vast cemetery flanked by neat groves of sycamore trees. The entire scene was hemmed in by multiple highways and a 6 lane overpass that hummed deep into the night. . It was a fifteen-minute walk from her door to the bus that went downtown. Most weekdays for the past 8 years she had walked a particular route, the shortest one, to the bus stop. And for the first 6 years, the route remained, at least visually, fairly static. But in recent years, sterile black brick high rises began to shoot forth from empty lots as if a tectonic shift had relieved the earth’s pressure and forced the monstrosities through fissures in the earth’s crust. And there they were, increasing in number like phragmites in noxious estuaries of NJ. The buildings tended to sprout in groups, like the shoots from a node of some architectural rhizome.

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