anitatintsyan-blog - Tumblr blog

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6 cigarettes 

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5:14

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Ani Tatintsyan

New short story series Parallel Jane. A new chapter every Sunday! 

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I was lucky enough to have one of my poems, "Everything is Magic" published in the latest issue of CalArts Eye.

Enjoy! 

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I guest-lectured Douglas Kearney's undergraduate critical studies course at the California Institute of the Arts on November 19, 2014. My lecture, "Institutional Appropriation of Bodies: The Slave Ship, the Prison, the Museum", focuses on economic and disciplinary techniques underlying issues of racial oppression and appropriation. Drawing on theories of bio-politics, discipline and punishment from French philosopher Michel Foucault, the lecture aims at raising questions about the institutional spaces in which the body, especially the body of color, is appropriated. Finally, the lecture attempts to look at the historical and cultural consequences of these systematic factors, leading to questions of visibility and invisibility within certain spaces.

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SARKO @ Wilshire Ebell

I'm helping curate this show, and I want to see you all there! 

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Artifical Sweetener Short Film Shoot

I co-wrote a short film with Danny Simonzad, and this week we finished production on it. 

Directed by Danny Simonzad, produced by Spot On Media, Danny Simonzad, Shervin Youseffian, and myself- the short will be coming out soon!

I had such an amazing time on set and I can't wait for everyone to see it. Here are some photos from the shoot.

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A Personal Guide to Old Lovers

She said, "I love you too much to start over with you," which made a whole lot of sense but he needed validation and needed a friend who knew him before the sound of a crowd going wild had gone to his head.

He said, "I can't write songs anymore," which made a whole lot of sense, songs that reminisced his time with her were now considered the "old stuff" and the stuff he and many of his fans felt he would never live up to. 

She said, "I hate seeing you like this," but what she really meant was that she was afraid she'd find out she didn't feel the way she thought she would always feel and that scared her because the realization of time's cruel effect on all of us is a complexity many of us would rather avoid. 

He said, "I love you too much to let you go," but I think what he really meant was that he was sorry he ever did. 

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Lana, Sofia, Marilyn & Uma.

I listen to Lana’s new album and it reminds me of the Chateau Marmont. It reminds me of that because I feel as though Sofia Coppola would direct a movie based on her album, any one of them, and she would cast beautiful and rich women to play sad and damaged girls running in and out of an exclusive LA hotel. I also think of her film “Somewhere”.

  I think of the Chateau Marmont and remember this one time I was there with a film crew to film Uma Thurman for an anti-bullying campaign. Uma’s people called us and cancelled at the last minute. But the Chateau fit the scene perfectly. Of course her people would cancel, she wasn’t feeling up to it and wanted to film it once she was back in New York.

  But this was LA, and the Chateau was so beautiful and old, I can almost feel the ghost of Marilyn’s pills all over a room somewhere upstairs. I liked being there, but I felt like maybe I was an outsider looking in.

  Lana’s album plays in the background of my mind as we pack our equipment and walk out of the hotel. The girl in the front smiles faintly, judging us.

  I walk out, I feel so LA- the ghosts of fallen starlets kicking us out of their hiding place.

  I think to myself, how ironic. Then I say out loud to the producers and the crew – “Uma Thurman is a bully.” 

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I met my friend Arman Hamamah while we were both students at USC. He introduced me to Childish Gambino and one year we went to Coachella together and CAMPED! I told him it was a great experience but I probably will never camp again! Oh and he also fell asleep in the van while I drove us back from Coachella at like 4 in the morning. 

A lot of my fond memories of Arman include music shows or college procrastination. We're similar in a lot of ways which was the main reason I knew our conversation would run smooth. I wanted him to be a guest on this series because I love getting his perspective on pop culture, writing, reading, and music. 

He gave me three screenwriting books when I was trying to get into writing screenplays and I can always count on him to give me solid advice on anything. 

I went over to his house to return those books and to drink beer at 1:30 PM on a Thursday. We talked about social media self-promotion, Childish Gambino, James Franco, and being writers. 

He's a writer, funny-man, and overall awesome person and so I hope that you enjoy our conversation.

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I don’t actually remember when I met Edlin Yousefi, I just remember knowing her for a very long time. We went to middle school, high school, and college together- and throughout that time I remember always being enamored by the way she presented herself to the world. Among many other things, she’s extremely spontaneous, creative, and intelligent. She’s one of my closest friends, but that’s not exactly the reason I wanted her to be my first guest on this…”conversation series”. I wanted her to be my first guest because I knew her ability to talk about anything and everything, (another reason is that I knew she would make it very easy for me). Her vast knowledge about everything from art to technology is truly amazing and her opinions and sense of humor make me the luckiest “host” ever. 

I invited Edlin over to my house and cooked her dinner as a means to bribe her contribution to this series. We talked about Tinder, our mutual admiration of Los Angeles, art, architecture, alcohol, and much much more. I hope you enjoy it. 

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Nina & Naya: The End of the Beginning

Nina: This is what I want; I want to have money, I want to be able to make art without the stress of making money, I want to have a PhD, I want to be skinny, pretty, and famous. Is that too many things to want?

Naya: I want to curate a show based off of what you just said and print that as a decal and place it at the entrance. *laughs*

Nina: We can call it “Millennial Ambition”

Naya: I guess it’s normal to want the perfect life, except I think even if you have the “perfect” life you feel a certain pressure to have more of what you already have or to have things you don’t have and so maybe we’ll never be happy. Maybe we grew up in a time where our parents and teachers kept telling us that the world was going to give us everything we want, and that if we just “believed” in our dreams they would come true and now we’re all depressed because we don’t have the life we were promised and probably never will.

Nina: I honestly don’t feel like I should work as someone’s intern for three years just so they could give me an entry level job when I’m 23- I feel like I deserve better, don’t you?

Naya: I guess so, but I also recognize the limits  of our ambitions as just romanticized projections of youth and glamour and money. Ugh, I don't know life is so hard and maybe if our parents and teachers taught us THAT we would have been more prepared.

Nina: Or more depressed. 

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Seasons

The summer sun had set over the mountains, I was aware. I was also dangerously aware that as the seasons changed so did we, none of it was the same. I knew that nothing of what was, had been left. Like natural disaster refugees who desperately search for their belongings after a hurricane or a tsunami – I knew that chances were I would not find anything. I searched – nevertheless. When I found nothing, I was disappointed – even though I was reminded over and over again at the slim chance of anything being found after such a storm.

            The autumn leaves had fallen, and the naked trees had turned gray, but the remains of words unsaid lingered on the peak of the mountains with the snow when winter finally arrived. Just as the icy wind started to blow, my frozen performance saluted it. I was apprehensively apologetic at how I greeted the new season, but the throbbing feeling in my chest did not permit me to rest. The air that entered my lungs was scarce, and the aching in my head stopped all of time. I ran across the snowy grounds but found no redemption. Let me be alone with my thoughts and I promise I can fix this, all of it. None of us have to suffer for my mistakes, all of my hopeless yearnings, all of my wishful thinking. I swear to you I will remedy your broken heart, if you let me. I cannot bear the thought of your suffering, a suffering due to my inhibitions, my negligence, my childlike engagements.

            The winter ice melted away, and spring arrived. I wished for the colors of this town to change the colors of my soul. Everything reminded me of an unknown time, and an unknown place. Nothing felt familiar and my inner fears defeated my chances. Who was to blame for this constant restlessness? I had fallen into this spiral and I could not escape because truthfully, I did not want to. You see, I believed that if I just held on for a big longer through the April showers, when May brought the flowers – I would run across the fields to pick up my gold at the end of the rainbow. Truthfully, I waited for a unicorn- a unicorn I was certain, oh so sadly certain, existed.

            When summer arrived again, the familiar heat on my skin kissed away the aching. Slowly, the pain morphed into a hopeful inspiration of change. The light at the end of the tunnel glowed with the promise of a better tomorrow. I could not change what was done; I could not alter these actions of yours, these longings of mine. I could only hope that when winter arrived again, the fear of being cold would not keep me from going outside. 

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EMERGENCY LANDING

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Billboards, Texting, Freeways, and Cars

Coca Cola.

I was thinking about Coca Cola, when I first saw her. That’s what I was thinking about, and I was thinking about it because I saw its huge advertisements all over corporate buildings while stuck in traffic on the 110 northbound freeway.

            I’m not sure if you could see the Staple center from that freeway, but it really does seem like you could see everything, everything in downtown I mean. And because I have spent so much time in traffic I have started to notice tiny and new pieces of information each time.

             I have wondered about the man with the violin standing so tall and majestic and wondered who he was. I assumed he was part of the LA orchestra, because of the other people with musical instruments standing slightly further from him, (Also because I think if you look closely it actually says “LA Orchestra” on the billboard somewhere). And although he’s part of a group, he seems alone up there- sort of like maybe he’s the leader of that orchestra. I have wondered who he was for a very long time, and then wondered if he knew he had a giant billboard of himself overlooking downtown LA facing the freeway, where rush hour patrons will look at him and sort of be annoyed at his face for no reason. I also wondered if he was fond of the photo of himself, and then wondered how I would feel about having a giant picture of myself on a billboard overlooking the freeway. I decided I would like it. I’m vain though; I don’t know if he is too.

I was thinking about Coca Cola because I was thinking about how many Coke advertisements there are up on billboards and buildings. Then I started thinking about our insides being torn apart like towns that fall victim to natural disasters, except that Coke wasn’t natural at all and could be prevented, unlike natural disasters, it’s just plain poison. For example if you’re having trouble scrubbing the bottom of your pan you could just pour some Coke on it and it will clear up all the dirt soap can't even clean. So then you can’t help but imagine your insides being fucked with. It didn’t matter though, because right next to the billboard of Wells Fargo, another form of poison I guess, there was Coke. Maybe we just like advertising man-made poison back to man as to make sure they’re fucking up their lives the way they’re supposed to be. (I don’t know.)

This is when I saw her, the woman texting while driving on the 110 northbound freeway. The thing with texting and driving is that everyone does it and they still freak out when their friends do it in the car they’re not driving. It’s the sort of thing that’s I guess only okay when we do it, even though we know that’s not okay either. She switched lanes and was now behind me and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Among the thoughts of poison, coke, and even the violin guy- I started to think about her rear-ending me because she was not paying attention to where she was going. Every time I would look through my rearview she had her eyes on her phone and it started to freak me out. I knew she was going to hit me especially the way she would break abruptly after we would move a couple inches and then stop again. I decided to get out of the lane even though it was one of two lanes that would take me to the 5 North. I looked through my review again, and again she was not paying attention and I guess neither was I because I rear-ended the guy in front of me.

The first though that came to me when I hit the car in front of me was Coca Cola. Sort of wishing I was the dirt at the bottom of a pan that it could clear up. 

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The Girl in the Mirror

- Ani Tatintsyan

These dreams of mine constantly consisting

Of a haunting image resisting,

My eager efforts of escaping it.

  A beautiful catastrophe,

She shadows my anxieties;

Endlessly battles my resting mind.

  Stubborn and selfish, her charming lies defeat

My passions of change, my yearnings of existence; 

Slowly inhabiting my body as her own.

  She holds me in an invisible chokehold

Though it’s not invisible to me,

I cannot escape her tragic insanities.

                          Every morning I awake in a puddle of her tears,

Every night I sleep among her mess,

Every day I pull her heavy soul alongside mine.

  My drowsy mind regrets any permission of freedom

I have granted her last night- every night. 

My broken heart pumps the blood in her veins.

  She carefully walks around my battered empathy;

Poking at just the right buttons,

Pushing just far enough.

  Drives me to the edge and dares me to jump.

The calming wind plays with my hair,

“I swear we’re the same,” she says.

  This world is just enough or not enough

Or good enough.

“Maybe this wind can carry me home,” I say.

  “I no longer wish to share my skin with you,

No longer wish to share my bones with you,

To share my thoughts with you."

  “You share your dreams with me,

and your demons with me,

and there’s no custody for that” she responds.

  She screams,

“There is no you without me,

You don’t exist without me!”

  Her darkness overwhelms me, frightens me

But her dangerous character ignites me,

Her careless demeanor inspires me.

  She is my enemy and my only friend,

I could create a masterpiece

From every word she’s ever said.