I need you (I need you) More than anyone darlin'

ATTENTION.

I will be leaving for an amazing hippie camp in about half and hour, and will not return and be up and blogging until august 1st or so, because there are no computers allowed there.

Thanks for understanding,

Lola.

Title Quote: Build Me Up Buttercup, The Foundations

I got headaches and toothaches And bad times too Like you

Today, my friends and I woke at 5 in the morning and headed off to Central Park, to see the cast of Hair, the tribal love rock musical, perform some of the songs from the play. Unfortunately, the performance was sponsored by abc.com, and television is mainly something I am opposed to. This meant that there were a bunch of people who hadn't come for the music, but to be on tv. We even met a woman who thought she as going to see hairspray! That made me angry, because that is completely not what the play, or the subject of the play,w as about. And then of course it was totally directed for the cameras, doing takes and retakes of each song until it was perfect. The audience was only there so that they could be shown, loving the performers. They literally told us, at times, when to clap and shout. And that is just selling out! The whole play is about resisting the system, doing what you want, being free. Grrrr. But there were others who felt this way too. When my friends and I got in to the area, the first thing we noticed was that there was astroturf place over the actual grass. But, later on, we found they couldn't completely get rid of nature, since after all, it was in the middle of a park. Sparrows were nesting in the supports of the stage, and as the performers sang, they would fly out, above everyone's heads.

So here we are, and there are bunches of people holding signs to the cameras and crowding around the stage. No one really is on it, and we can listen from farther away, so we set out our blanket away from the crowd and sit to eat our breakfast. Others, real Hairheads began to spread down too. We happily munched and crunched and when we looked up, we saw that three men, all dressed like Jimi Hendrix except for they were white, were setting up behind us. They had these wonderful, colorfully batiked flags that they began to twirl and spin and create colors in the air with. They let us try it. It was amazing, and they had just because they wanted to, not because they had been hired. I laughed at all the people in front of us, pushing to see an empty stage, while they were missing a real show behind them!

Finally, the cast began to come onstage, and we had a great time, despite the cameras. The music was amazing, and Berger (one of the main characters, the actor is Will Swenson) actually came down and took people's hands, and totally held on to his for about five seconds! Yes, I was extremely excited, thank you very much. Flowers in my hair, beads around my neck, I jumped and sang, and then it began to rain. Loving it, we reached up and pulled it down, in sheets of drizzly mist. It didn't dampen our party, it only made it better. Since Michael Jackson had died the day before, the cast of Hair did a tribute to him, by singing I'll Be There, and it was great. The concert ended, and we dispersed. My friends and I (to be exact they were the wizardress and Miss Lizzy) wandered away, and began to get ourselves back to school(we had missed the first hour or so, but it didn't matter since it was the last day of school).We stopped by Bethesda fountain, where oh, so many weddings are held, and listened to a man play Michael Jackson jazzy-like on his sax. We waded into the fountain until someone made us get out, then proceeded on our merry way. After getting out of the park and taking many detours, we came to The Wizardress' grandmother's house, and stopped by to dry off. Her house was filled with chotchkes. As we walked up the street, people stared at us strangely, especially since I was singing the lines of the title of this post over and over. I remembered how we looked and who we were and I was so happy that I was who I was and that we were the sort of interesting people tourists stared and talked about. I was so, so, happy.

If you would like to see what you all missed, go here and click on the let the sun shine in and aquarius links on the top bar, or just search for hair in the park. There is also the cast blog telling about all the actors if you did see hair, which I thought was pretty cool. You can see it here.

Title Quote: Hair, I Got Life

All the people are so happy now, their heads are caving in

This dose of funny animals brought to you by

Lola Bellybutton,

Blogger (if I do say so myself) extraordinaire

Title Quote: They Might Be Giants, Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes

My sky shoes are spiked with lead heels

This is one amazing artist: His name is Mark Wagner, and he makes art out of dollar bills. He very carefully cuts them up with an exacto knife and collages them together to create beautiful works that look nothing like dollars. Please check out his site or the first one, because I can only put up so many pictures, but here are my favorites:

Title Quote: Don McLean, Dreidel

I been dreamin' since I woke up today

Summer utopias

force down

idea?

Defenders tango

with entombing 

pride

a colorful dragon

breathes language

infernos

The ancient riddle

to folly incites

a fused serum.

title quote: Daydream, Lovin' Spoonful

Facing a dying nation Of moving paper fantasies

People are always writing disparities, agonizing on the state of the world. I see their words, assembled into loose personages, kneeling, their hands stretched out, trying to grasp at something, save something, that they feel they cannot. But really, perhaps you can.

Perhaps, as we live and move, as our brains whir about in our tiny brains that are so complicated when we magnify each particle, but are so simple when zoomed out and compared to things like the theory of Evolution, perhaps we are making a change. I think that to protest, to speak out and bring to light the shortcomings of the world, is really only half the battle. Now that people see  them, we must begin to right them.

I recently read an article in Make magazine, that talked about a man who was doing just that, trying to save the world. His plan was to feed phytoplankton (the lowliest form on the food chain, which krill then eats, which whales eat, or fish eat, which sharks and we then eat, etc.) iron oxide, which caused them to 'bloom', or prosper, grow. And for every iron atom phytoplankton consumes, it absorbs 100,000 carbon atoms from the atmosphere. That means that if you feed them this food, then they get rid of the co2 in the air, what is causing (in part) global warming. 1 ton of iron can fix 367,000 tons of co2. 

So why not do this? Why not let him get started, throwing around iron atoms to these miracles makers? Well, because people won't let him. People in companies who get ahold of the government, etc., who don't want him too for silly reasons. And most of those reasons are masked behind one real cause: This way to fix the environment would cost about $8 billion, while they believe that other ways would cost upwards $400 billion. And these companies are angry, because they would be getting some of that money to save the environment, but with this man relatively cheaply cleaning up the environment, they get no money. So, yes, these greedy people are endangering life as we know it for not just our species but the whole world--because they want some little green colored slips of paper. 

But if there are enough of us whose heads are filled with spinning whirligigs, who like to imagine what if... then perhaps we can do something yet. Per

haps there will be more of us than them, and we can rise, we can live and learn and teach and help and grow and thrive. 

And isn't it, as I am always saying, the point of life to be happy? Not in a short term sense, and not in a singular sense, either. But to be happy yourself, and to be able to try, at least, to make sure that those around you, and those yet unborn, will be happy too. I mean, really, what good is living, day in, day out, trudging to a job you hate, coming home to a house--either alone or with people who are not being who you want--unhappy? What is the reason? And you may say "Because I need to make money." Why? So that you can retire, and live an unhappy life then, too? For, in my experience, unhappiness the whole life just leads to more unhappiness later on. So why not start now by stopping such unhappiness, if only to be happy for an indefinite period in the indefinite future, and start now? 

You say life clings in balance, that it all must get done or it will fall apart, but why not just get rid of the whole system? Do that and the web of unspoken rules, that precious balance, is gone, and you break free, to do as you choose, and to make yourself happy and set an example for others. It's not about money or power; the most powerful, richest person out there may be and most probably is more sad than the lowliest, most poor person around. And really, no one can be happy if you aren't around, or there isn't an earth around, to be happy on. So that's where the long term kicks in Its not all just short joys, you have to plan and be happy as you do it, and make sure that later on, your kids, your grandkids, will have a place to be happy, and you will be happy then too.

But now, it really just sounds like a bunch of commercial fodder, used to make you buy something, or some sort of cheesy "everything is groovy, man" thing. And that's not what I mean. I'm just asking, would you chose billions of dollars, a beautiful spouse, millions of people to rule over, but no guarantee that you will be happy, or none of that, just pure, long lasting happiness? Really, which one? I'm trying to be profound ere, I'm trying to get across a message. I mean, after all, people who smile live longer.

Title Quote: Hair (musical), Flesh Failures (let the Sun Shine In)

Picture Credit: For the first two: Glynis Selina Arban, The last one is from an unidentified flickr user.

from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow

Rain pours and pounds on people's faces, and the faces scrunch up and try to blow it all away, but finally all those little drops add up, and the faces open up and accept the rain, that refreshes, cleanses, opening all sorts of infinite possibilities, and not asking for anything in return. The faces and the people attached tot hem do all sorts of things they might not of been thinking of doing the hour before: running, singing, splashing, perhaps sharing an umbrella, though I don't much believe in those silly things. And, sure, there are people who don't enjoy rain, times when it really is very unwanted and un-enjoyed, but today I am dwelling on its good aspects, those of which there are many. Have you ever noticed, that as you look out at rain, look through it's many mingling, swaying curtains, the colors of the world sway and mingle too? Until it is the color of rain and rain is the color of it. And it is not ugly, quite on the contrary, it is beautiful, even when the mud mixes in too. You just have to look at it the right way. 

I once sat in a stream, and watched as it swirled around my legs, and wondered, what was the color of water? Because to see it anywhere is to see the colors behind, before, and around it, but what was its own color? It had no name. WE had not invented such a word in our language. And I thought that one day, I might write a book, and I would title it The Color Of Water. Curious, about two seconds ago I googled those words, and found a book already written with such a title. Instead of disappointing me, it comforted me, because I knew that at least one other had taken the time to ask his or herself, what was the color of water? I can only answer that question in a poetic sense, answering that water is the color of a child's love; the color of never before opened eyes; the color of want, need; the color of life. And this I pondered and told my friend, sitting next to me, until the conversation came to rest on stardust, and finally the lyrics of woodstock, by Joni Mitchell, where she says "We are Stardust, We are golden", because we technically are made from stardust. During the Big Bang, stars exploded and imploded, and came about to, in the end, create all the elements, 111 of them, in the world. Though it is thought that at the beginning of the Big Bang, there was only Hydrogen, Helium, and Lithium. The world was made from star debris, as were we and everything else on it and in the universe, which makes us, in a convoluted sense, made from stardust. 

And, coming full circle to my beginning train of thought, makes us kind of sort of made, in a very very basic sense, from the same stuff as rain is made from. And not even in such that basic sense, as our bodies are about 60% water in adult men, 55% water in adult women, so we are a lot like rain. If it were not for the salt, we would essentially be crying rain. And isn't that a thought? I think I would be less embarrassed by some of my tears shed if I imagined them to be rain, doing the same thing as rain does. One of my most favorite things to do is to run through grass right after it has rained or while it still is raining, and afterwards, my feet feel as if brushed with the most expensive moisturizing creams; they are soft and supple. Rain is magical, wild animals know it enough, and so I think we better take a lesson from nature and open our mouths, laughing, when the sky opens up around us.

Title Quote: Led Zeppelin, Immigrant Song

Useless information Supposed to misfire my imagination

Hey. Going to Boston with my school tomorrow for three days. Wow. I just almost wrote family instead of school! Wowowow. Interesting... So anyway, we're going away there and hopefully I will have some great stories to write about it. But for now, I think I will write some more (still!) of my travels in Punta Cana (hope this isn't getting boring, I just have so much to tell!). 

Though this was a resort, there were a few interesting people. I mean, most were fat pink americans or tan, almost naked europeans, but there was bound to be a few people there that were someone we wanted to meet. After all, we were there, weren't we? And if we could possibly be staying here, so could others like us. (please excuse my sounding egotistic and self-centered, but I see no way else to explain it.) Here are a few more people I saw who seemed interesting, if not people I wanted to meet, at least people who were interesting enough to write about. 

On the beach one of the days, we saw a topless lady we nicknamed Sandy Lady, for she was covered in sand. Sandy Lady was tanned dark brown, not orange, like some people who overtan. She was slim, with a spiraling, swirling black tattoo winding up one side of her. She stood, in just her bathing suit bottom, playing over the sand. As we walked over to the water we noticed that Sandy Lady had buried her boyfriend in the sand and all that stuck out was his head. As we entered the water, Sandy Lady ran in too, and became no longer Sandy. She looked so happy and free. Maybe it was just her personality, but maybe it was the fact the she had no top to keep her in. We only saw about three topless women at this beach. I would have gone topless as well, no doubt about it, if only I had a friend to come with me. It would be too hard on my own, I think. It made me determined to go to a nude beach someday, though. This is how I feel beaches should be, especially since people wear practically nothing on, anyway. When I go to France (a goal of mine is to go there when I'm old enough to go alone) perhaps I will go to a nude beach there. 

On the beach, I was also interested by how these two men, presumably Europeans, as they were clad in speedos, walked down the beach. They walked side by side, and matched each other's steps exactly, so that if viewed from the right angle, it could have been viewed as one man. Neither man was trying to walk at the exact same pace, nor did either notice. That intimacy, much like the one I noted from this post, was just so very real, you know? I just seem as though I don't see it often. I mean, we're soaked in so called "intimacy" from the media, younger and younger children being able to watch people kissing and having sex in movies, but I feel that that just isn't it. I feel like other little moments, like the two I have already described, mean so much more, and it's sad that there isn't more of it.

Lastly, we saw a man with tattoos all over him. We were able to see them all over, as he was sitting in this ridiculous wet bar--where you sit on half submerged stools or swim around with drinks in your hand, gotten from a bar just plunked right in the middle of the swimming pool! Anyway, so he was sitting at the wet bar, wearing only a bathing suit, so we saw all these tattoos up and down his back, and they were pretty impressive, and believe me, I've seen my fair share of tattoos, in NYC and LA. He had a thin scraggly bleached blonde mohawk that was lilac at the tips. On his shaven head there was a brain tattooed inside a neutron. I thought that this was pretty cool, and it made such an extreme difference from most everyone else there. I wondered what his story was, how he happened to be here. I missed NY, with its diversity. I missed.

But then again, here I am, back again, and leaving tomorrow morning! Well, I better wrap this up now and go pack my bags...

write ya when I get back!

Lola

Title Quote: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction