Everybody Hurts...even in France.
"Willow Rosenberg" 2004. Cross-stitch. 7" X 8."
Subtitle: I love you, but this is something I just have to do.
I know I’ve said this 20 times by now, but the greatest thing about the doing a residency is all the other artists you come into contact with. Stacia Yeapanis , a mixed-media artist from Chicago, lived in my house while at VSC, but we really connected over episodes of Freaks and Geeks in the Red Mill lounge. Stacia was incapacitated due to a water accident with her laptop, and I was temporarily out of commission due to a bad case of the 48 hour flu.
And thus our mutual TV love affair began.
"Fox Mulder" 2006. Cross-stitch. 10" X 14." Subtitle: We all have our faith.
Stacia is a mixed media artist who uses everything from TV watching to gaming and crafting as a way to explore the “psychological significance of entertainment practices”.
"Waking Up Transparent" From Glitches Are Signs, 2006.
Along side her ongoing umbrella project “My Life as a Sim”, which uses the popular computer game The Sims 2* as a medium in making art, Stacia has constructed this great website --EverybodyHurts.org which is all about the emotions that TV watching can influence.
"Wife and Mother" From Glitches Are Signs, 2006.
The best part is that you can write your own testimonial about being moved by a television character, or contribute something about your emotional response to a specific TV show and Stacia will post it to the site.
So for what it’s worth, here’s what I'm contributing to EverybodyHurts.org:
I started tearing up when Carrie Bradshaw screams at Mr. Big: “I don’t live here anymore!” Never has a goofy TV sitcom made me as emotional as “An American Girl in Paris I” episode of Sex and the City.
No doubt the episode was all the more moving because so many scenes echoed what the last six months of my life had been like. Having just recently moved to France from New York, I too was off on a great French adventure. I’ll never forget the scene when Carrie finally steps out onto the hotel room balcony and squeals with delight at the sight of the Eiffel tower. I know exactly how she felt. I too had had that exact moment, and in that moment, I was laughing and squealing along with her.
From there it was all downhill.
A few hours later I found myself sobbing in my car, in a McDonald’s parking lot, trying to explain to my poor sweet French husband that like Carrie said “It’s hard. It’s harder than I thought.” I missed my girlfriends, I missed my apartment, and I missed New York! All this between ice-less lukewarm gulps of “Coca light”.
Carrie Hurts.
All sobbing aside, the reason that episode got to me was because for that 20 minutes I was invested in the character’s life because I felt like in some way it was my own. If Carrie could somehow have a happy ending then hell, maybe I could too.
You can send your TV testimonial to: stacialy@yahoo.com or go directly to EverybodyHurts.org.
3 comments:
This is what I feel like now...I haven't even arrived yet and it has been extremely difficult getting my paperwork from France. My entire Visa packet is ready - has been for the past month - except for the paperwork we're STILL waiting for from France.
Getting people to respond and follow-up has been troublesome due to the difference in culture. Everything just takes SO MUCH longer. And the language...I've been studying French on my own, but I find that when Olivier and I get together with his friends, I find it difficult to not understand what's being said or to try to keep up with rapid-fire French.
I hope that it will get better once I'm there and once I'm in my immersion classes (they last for one year). Did you study French before going to France? Or did you study while there?
I can't believe I wrote this much but this post totally touched on how I've been feeling with the move being only a month away. And I know things will be even harder when I'm there. But it's worth it.
I'm a big fan of Sex and the City. It's such a funny and cool show. That last double episode is really fabulous, it's like Carrie finally steps into her fashion magazines, the beautiful way the scenes are constructed like paintings or photographs, particularly the scene where she's sleeping on the bed with the amazing dress spread out all around her, or in the cafe with the dog. Hey I booked my flight, August 28! Back to Metz again, yay!
ah yes, the moving to Paris episodes. I actually watched those in the middle of the night before I left to move to France (stayed up for my super early flight). I think it does a good job of showing a bit what moving abroad is like, The Husband always likes to point out that I was lucky to have someone nice and supportive instead of the lame guy Carrie got.
Sometimes I think about what my blog would have been like if i started it during those first 6 months-1 year, wayyyy less cheery than it is now.
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