caroline contillo

So I’ve found myself in the nightmarish position of searching for an apartment in new york city during a recession with a student’s budget and a severe cat allergy. As Chelsea Peretti says in response to the frequent “Must Love Cats” caveat that follows so many craigslist apartment listings: “No, I mustn’t.” In an attempt to stave off a crippling depression at the thought of uprooting myself from the apartment I’ve lived in for 5 years and for which I pay an absurdly low amount of money, I’m trying to force myself to enjoy the apartment hunt as a sort of anthropological experiment. That said, if anyone who happens to lurk at this particular website knows of a room in the greenpoint, williamsburg, east williamsburg or bushwick area that has a window and remains moderately priced, please drop me a comment. Also, it’s always been my unlikely dream to live in one of those old apartments in Long Island City, near PS 1, so in the off chance that you have stumbled across the blog while searching the internet for a roommate, keep that in mind.

yesterday when i was walking up 6th ave to meet S for dinner I walked past Patti Smith and in my excitement, reached my hand out and grazed the briefcase she was holding.

I did this once to the back of Madonna Louise Ciccone’s hand, too, as she was entering a limo in times square.

pictures from maine will be uploaded eventually, whence you can behold moose and toads.

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.