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randompearls
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Name: Liza
Gender: Female
Expertise: Whistling,Voice imitation,Making paper balloons and snowflakes,Talking to cardinals,Collecting tiny treasures,Making notes/quotes/observations about everything around me,Doodling,Singing when no one is around,Photography,General knowledge trivia,Dancing when no one is around,Making mixtapes and mix-cd's,Making collages or scrapbooks,Thrifting,Sewing.....basically nothing I could ever get paid for.
Occupation: Professional Slacker
Message: message me
Member Since:
1/23/2009
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so i've read about this sort of thing before, but a preliminary search on one location in particular led me to a PBS website that gave the details of many other DIY paradises. it's made for the independent lens series and it's called:
Off The Map [click on "interactive tour" for all the locations]
beyond the inspiring persistence and no-holds-barred attitude of these everyday people, the beauty and honesty of their "hobbies", and the sheer fascination these environments provoke in me......in looking through each one i found that the words of the creators themselves were most inspiring.
the words speak for themselves [and to the importance of their respective landmarks].
+ "If you don't try something, you won't learn anything."
-- Vollis Simpson [creator of Windmill Park]
+ "I had to find something better to do that watch television."
-- Vollis Simpson
+ “[I’ve been a] farmhouse mover, electric welder, carpenter, the list goes on. If you don't try something, you don't learn anything. Common sense. You come across a lot of these people that know so damn much, sometimes you find out they're dumber than I am...”
-- Vollis Simpson
+ “Whatever your age, whatever you wish to achieve, if you are courageous, persistent and hard-working, you are sure to succeed.”
-- Ferdinand Cheval [creator of Palais Ideal]
+"I had a mind to do something big and I did it."
-- Simon Rodia [creator of Watts Towers]
+ "You have to be good good or bad bad to be remembered."
-- Simon Rodia
+ "One day I started building a fence round my place with tile. I find that's lots of fun; and I build fence so much I forget to drink. I no kid you, honest."
-- Simon Rodia
+ "I just hope I last another 30 years because I've got things to do."
-- Leonard Knight [creator of Salvation Mountain]
+ "I really believe that truth and love are the two biggest forces on earth."
-- Leonard Knight
+ "Nature has created the form, not me. Unlike the "trained" fine artist who is fussy about anatomical and technical details, I make a quick job of the thing..."
-- Nek Chand [creator of The Rock Garden]
+ "I built this place to have something to identify with, 'cause there's nothin' I see in society that I identify with or desire to emulate. Here I can be in my own world, with my temples and designs and the spirit of God."
-- Eddie Owens Martin [creator of Pasaquan]
+ "Pasaquoyanism has to do with truth, nature, and man's lost rituals"
-- EOM
+ "We're only here a short time. We've got to leave this planet something. We've got to leave it a little better than we found it."
-- Dr. Evermor (Tom O. Every) [creator of The Forevertron]
+ "Anyone can do anything with a million dollars--look at Disney. But it takes more than money to make something out of nothing, and look at the fun I have doing it."
-- Tressa "Grandma" Prisbey [creator of Bottle Village]
+ "When Christ called his disciples, he called fishermen; he didn't call nobody from a university"
-- Howard Finster [creator of Paradise Garden]
+ "I am called from another world. I try to live perfect. I built this park of broken pieces to try and mend a broken world of people who are traveling their last road. I took the pieces you threw away and put them together by night and day. Washed by rain and dried by sun, a million pieces all in one."
-- Howard Finster
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"Only a person
without principles
could be so complaisant
towards grief."
I realized on the drive home today that it feels like forever since I've sang, drawn, and danced.
All things I love, with my most tender heart.
All things I've apparently forgotten...
So the solution to happiness is found!
Make lists, people.
It works.
Honest to goodness.
...I've been making lists of things that never fail to make me happy since the 7th grade. Trust me.
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me, at times:
you, usually:
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feeling vulnerable has never upset me much.
but feeling useless always has.
i don't prefer to control my emotions, it's just easier to do so than consider they have no purpose.
i will always love unconditionally, but my feelings never disappear entirely. they come with the territory.
why is it that i'm always desiring something totally different from myself? so different, in fact, that i feel i can get lost inside it?
loving otherness is immediate, but confronting it's reality later on causes me to question it's sanity...and sometimes even my own.
everything leads me back to the point of accepting that i can't help the way i feel:
i despise and love contradicitons simultaneously,
which is an unusually difficult thing to acknowledge about oneself.
although selfishness or egotism is--in my opinion--undesirable, it is the opposing force of objectivity and therefore is, in many ways, just as significant as it's counterpart.
equality seems so simple and is a lofty and admirable ideal, but it's practice is often complex and emotionally taxing or even potentially contradictory.
on one hand there is certainty, faith, and obstinance; conviction.
and on the other there is the unknown, skepticism, and flexibility; theory.
if you love them both equally, how do you love properly and truly, and to the best of your ability? to the extent that everything you love deserves?
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there's this dead flower in my room...
with the light just so and my head on the pillows,
it's two skeletons embracing.
what's ironic about it is that...
change the light or the vantage point
and you see that there's actually only one skeleton; alone.
and all it's really holding is a shadow of itself.
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