"Your Voice for Eternity" by Matt

Pragmatism is cold, and your voice has always been warm and intimate. We grew up together and you showed me that the world is not a grid and that I am not a robot.  You’d talk to me like no one else would; you made me listen like no one else could.

I remember the first time we spent time together.  I decided to sit with you on the school bus.  I was leaning with my back against the metal panel below the window and you eased your way onto my lap.  The wind disheveled your neat and tidy aesthetic and you looked as cluttered as my thoughts.  I held to you tightly as I put up the window.   The wind halted with the dramatic shut of the glass.  I immediately felt comfortable as you drew me in with the eccentric zeal of your words.  Before I met you I could only occupy my own space and my own thoughts.  That night I slept with my blinds opened and I watched the stars.

A few years later, puberty hit the school like a plague.  Genuine curiosity became obsolete, angst and spitefulness filled its space.  Everyone hated you.  I pretended like I didn’t know who you were.  I shut off the world that you showed me and learned to walk with my eyes glued to the ground.  Time passed by. I didn’t think of you for a while.

It was really pleasant to catch up with you over coffee last summer.  Before we reacquainted I spent a lot of time in my own head.  Ambition and anxiety worked against each other and dragged me in every direction.  I was so engulfed in sculpting my own intricate and sensible direction that I failed to acknowledge the fact that there was so much more to life than what I could see with my two eyes.  Since I started putting time aside to spend with you I have regained my curiosity about the tiny gears that keep the earth spinning.   

I used to fear that the spark that fires my creativity would become dull with time.  Now I know that when I am feeling lost in the bureaucracy of a happy life or when I am feeling uninspired I know that I can spend time with you.  For every new chapter of me, there are a million chapters of you.  You speak to me through every stage; I live with you on every page.

Philosophical Thoughts by Katz and Kelly

We sit quietly in philosophy class,
While our minds ponder why we are here.
On the screen, Buddha meditates.
His voice echoes.
Hmmmmmmmmmm....Hmmmmmmmmmmm....
Can the math class next door hear him sing?
What is the meaning of life?

We raise our hands
And ask Mr. Elder our questions.
He does not know.

We look at the clock.
And wait.....wait......still waiting.....for 2:25.
Because it is Friday.
Master Elder tells us to pay attention,
"Only 10 more minutes!"
But we know that is a lie
Because it is 15 minutes.
15 minutes to 2:25.
14 minutes.
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Blast-off

Please Identify These Pictures!

These pictures are going to be put in the book, but we do not have the title or the artist for any of them! Please help out the Tapestry Senior Staff and identify all three!

For all interested in being on senior staff for the 2013-2014 year:

New senior staff applications are available on the door of room 176.
Just for clarification - "senior staff" refers to the select group of editorial staff for the magazine. Freshmen, sophomores, and juniors may apply for senior staff.
The applications are due May 3rd, and an interview process will follow. We are excited to fill spots for the 2013-2014 year.

Returning staff applications are due on Friday. All sophomores and juniors who are already on senior staff must complete an application and submit it to renew their places on the senior staff.


MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOR!!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations to 2013's Published Artists and Writers!!!

This year's review process was very selective and you should all be proud of yourselves! Stay tuned for more details about this year's publication of Tapestry, hot off the presses in May. Also, pay attention to subsequent posts about work for which we lack information that was selected for publication.
~Sam

This year's selected artists and writers:
Isabel Acevedo
Nina Appasamy
Zoe Aridor
Ian Asenjo
Luke Barbus
Maddy Beard
Elizabeth Bianchini
Sarah Bradley
Maria Burns
Sarah Burns
Dani Burton
Melissa Cagan
Kelly Capone
Erica Chang
Marissa Chianelli
Cara Costanzo
Luke Desmone
Che Esch
Nora Fisher
Sammie Garfinkel
Rama Godse
Bennett Graves
Alyssa Gurklis
Tommy Hammer
Jadie Hanley
Kate Hardiman
Emily Katz
Faith Kim
Maya Lantgios
Grace Lloyd
Emil Lukas
Juliet Millard
Mary Kate Noonan
Emily Quinn
Jaagrit Randhawa
Beth Rubel
Nathan Salamacha
Liz Schaffner
Sam Schanwald
Eddie Schwartz
Marty Shutzberg
Paige Staudt
Wolfgang Stearns
Jonathan Stebbins
Katie Stevenson
Lauren Thaete
Daly Trimble
McKenna Trimble

I watched a movie last night, and there was a story that was quoted in the movie. The story is The Velveteen  Rabbit by Margery Williams. Here's my favorite part of the story.


"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

This story actually reminded me of the movie Rise of the Guardians, the part about being real. It also reminded me about the book The Little Prince. And here's my favorite part of The Little Prince...well, I would post a segment of the book, but as I was looking through it, I think I love it too much to take it apart, and have others judge on it based on one part, so if you have time, I recommend reading this book. It is very short, and more like a children's book, but when I read it, I felt that I learned more about human nature in this book than I did reading other books.

ps. my favorite part is the story of the rose. ^_^

Unplugged

I am just so deeply disturbed by what I’ve been seeing on the internet recently. I am in disbelief that a member of our school community would spend time creating a twitter account dedicated to exploiting and alienating peers, especially female peers. I am in further disbelief that my good friends ended up following the account. I don’t know if it was out of fear or hope that they would be tweeted about, but it just doesn’t matter. People fueled the success of this effort by following the herd. It proved my fears about the internet to be true. The internet has the potential to be infinitely more destructive than it has to be creative. Imagine if the administrator of that account spent the time needed to create and maintain it on something creative or productive.

I leave you with this…

Too often it seems as though all I ever do is sit around. Even when I’m ‘doing things,’ I end up just sitting and processing. I get into my friends’ cars and sit while they drive me places. We go to coffee and sit, 75% of potential conversation time taken up by our staring at our phone screens and devices. We go to a movie and sit for two hours of our lives. And even if the movie is worthwhile, even if it’s exceptionally pretty, even if we’re saturated with thousands images that will haunt our minds for weeks because of their tremendous poetry, there’s no getting around the fact that we just sat in a dark room for two hours watching people live. We watch people do things that we won’t because we’re watching them in a movie theater. When comes the point at which we stop sitting, and start doing the things that filmmakers are prompted to write these movies about?

I was at coffee with my friends tonight, and I had a sad moment of insight that came on very fast. We were definitely in each other’s presence, but each of us was absorbed in some intangible event taking place beyond the thing glass film of our cell phone screens. I looked up at the sad pair before me soaked up in artificial handheld light, and realized that I was the third sad creature. Moments beforehand, we’d been making fun of this couple a few tables away because they were so invested in some abstract card game about the future. The thing is, they were living, and we were the ones sitting. I felt so terribly uncommitted to my relationships at that point, I made a resolution.

My cell phone and technology in general are getting in the way of my relationships. I look back on the days of my flip phone that ran on prepaid cards bought from the gas station. I miss not worrying about staying committed to someone on the other end of a cyber void. I miss being automatically fully invested in the person that sat before me. I miss being present. I will from this day forward:

 

                                       Shut my phone off and put it away

                                                During school

                                                During acting class

                                                During any class

                                                During all meals

                                                During parties

                                                During studying

                                                Before I enter my bedroom for bed/naps

                                                During concerts

                                                During dances

                                                While there are people around me

                                                During any rehearsal

 

The list will be longer someday, but this is a starting point for me. I advise you all to reevaluate your phone and internet usage and begin to revitalize your commitment to the relationships in real life. Unplugged is cool.

Sam