THE 5LIGHTS PROJECT

This is it.

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:57:59 -0400

All good things must come to an end, right?

And so The 5Lights Project has come to an end. It was a great couple months and we worked with some ridiculously talented musicians, writers, photographers, film makers and artists during that time. The quality of the work being posted was only getting better. However, Lou and I are moving on to (hopefully bigger and better) new things and are no longer able to maintain the site.

We hope you all enjoyed the creations that were posted here week after week and maybe it has inspired you to go and create your own new projects.

We thank you for all the support given us, and we couldn’t have ever been as successful as we were without both our super talented artists and people like you!

Thanks again and see you around,

- Lou Noble and Katie West

Be Calmed by Star St. Germain

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:44:36 -0400

Be Calmed by Star St. Germain

“I wonder what it would be like to be not particularly pretty. Passable, you know?” ...

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:13:46 -0400

“I wonder what it would be like to be not particularly pretty. Passable, you know?” Halfway through my point, I realize it isn’t something you can say out loud, so I look out the window, bite the edge of my straw, wait.
“Like me,” she says, in between stabs at her salad.
“Yes, exactly,” I think, with that part of me that hopes to, one day, be forgiven. I touch her hand and furrow my brow and tell myself that one I’ll go to therapy and be able to say things like, I’m not coming to lunch because I’m not in the mood. But for now I twist my finger through my ponytail and avoid looking back at her and summon every ounce of energy, every bit of me that knows how to lie, and drain it all into my gut and out of my mouth, “”No-oooo!”
“No, why would I say that to you if I thought you were that? You know how hot you are.”
“Awwww!” she beams. This, it seems, was all she wanted from me. How often, I worry, are we a stand-in, a warm body to sit next to at brunch? I can’t think about that for too long before wondering if she is the same thing to me— the type of woman you can’t sit across from at a table and look straight in the face.
We are inauthentic, as my yoga teacher would say.
“What would that be like?” she says, always game to jump on board with my moods. Maybe this is why I keep her around, to test out the limits of social interaction.
“I don’t know,” I shrug and shake my head. Once she says it I want to disavow it, but I know I can’t take it that far, so I stutter on, “I mean, I know I’m not hot or anything, but I know I’m pretty,” I shrug and I sigh and I wiggle, but she nods and I go on, “I know I can be…beautiful. Not always, and not to everyone, but I can be. Sometimes. And I know that.” It is hard to answer at first but her approval goads me on, into a different part of myself, a hallway, maybe, where I am unafraid to be threatening because I know I will be anyway, where I both love and hate myself the easy way: in extremes. “But other girls, some girls, you see them trying desperately to be special, to be interesting. I just can’t imagine being that, un-compelling.” I dare myself to look at her but my voice trails out the window. We are no longer having anything resembling a conversation. It is an interesting place to be.
Always with her, if not because of her, I come to terms with the limitations of my own femininity. As much as we joke and we affirm each other, almost comically, there is a dread. A worry that maybe I can’t, won’t be able to, look a man in the eyes and slay him. Maybe I won’t be able to do it the way I imagine in my head.

by Meaghan O’Connell

Gaze by Chad Michael Ward (p.s. Yesterday Chad had to go to the...

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:00:00 -0400

Gaze by Chad Michael Ward

(p.s. Yesterday Chad had to go to the ER, and is now stuck with a bunch of hospital bills. He’s having a print sale in an attempt to raise some money. He’s selling a bunch of old and new prints, as well as framed prints of his works from his recent DESOLATION HOLIDAY show, including this one, and last weeks photo as well. Help the man out if you can!)

Holiday by Ray Fawkes

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:19:12 -0400

Holiday by Ray Fawkes

Reckless by Star St. Germain

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:30:26 -0400

Reckless by Star St. Germain

“Look how much better my legs look like this,” she slapped his forearm with the back of...

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:00:50 -0400

“Look how much better my legs look like this,” she slapped his forearm with the back of her hand, a gesture that was at once familiar and rebellious, the words, “Don’t touch me while I’m driving,” hung in the air but were brushed aside .

“Hold on, Sally,” he said. He flipped on his turn signal and squinted past her into the side mirror for oncoming traffic. Her name was not Sally. There wasn’t any.

“Look, ba-bay!” she shouted and bopped around and shimmied her legs across the windshield the way any pretty girl on her way to the beach would do. Her hair was long and dark, wavy in ways that sometimes worked so well even she couldn’t believe it. She called him baby but pronounced it funny because then he would think it was a joke, an overflowing of her lightheartedness, maybe; of their ease. She cocked her head to the side and ran her hands up her thighs. Baby meant need, meant needing to stick around, meant whimpering late at night into his armpit and squeezing his shoulders and neck as she cried out under the weight of him. It was the word she kept hidden beneath her tongue, like a sneeze held in. It slipped out of her when she forgot to think about it.

Her toenails were bright blue and chipped, as they should be, her breasts swollen (as they should be, he nods) and under a bathing suit she hated but wore anyway. She pigeon-toed her feet and admired how perfect her legs looked hanging there like that. Looking good, whether she believed it would hold up when she got out of the car and walked around or not, always turned her on. See, there, she’d think, I’m pretty like this. If only she could guarantee that this was how men looked at her, that they forgave her everything else, if they forgave the tiny hairs on her upper thigh, above where she had stopped shaving, or the way her knees looked when she stood upright, all chubby and new. His brow was furrowed the way he let it do when he was wondering what the fuck she was talking about— when he was angry, annoyed at the lack of understanding; defensive. Men are always defensive about something, she’d tell her friends across tables at coffee shops, and this one, well, he’s no exception. She loved to make grand statements about men, to feel like she knew things. It never helped.

He looked down past her breasts and her cutoff jeans shorts and the hair on her upper thighs and to her knees which he longed to kiss as they bopped in time to the music.

“What the hell are you doing?” he smirked, softened after looking at her like that. This time she hit his thigh with the back of her hand (it felt like he was closer that way, always within smacking distance) and she laughed, her sunburned feet up on the dashboard. They had little half moons from where her high heels were, and she swayed them like windshield wipers, except it was sunny and they didn’t need them.

“I’m admiring how hot my legs look when I lift them up in the air like this. They look tall. And skinny. I look hot.”
“Long, you mean.”
“Huh.” She let her knees fall open.
“Long, legs are long they aren’t tall, you don’t say, Wow look at those tall legs, now there’s a tall-legged beauty,”
“Oh, blah, blah, BLAH. We get it. God I want to fuck you.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really. I want to fuck you on the beach in a lawn chair with an embarrassing umbrella, and I want to lift my legs up in the air and I want you to see how hot they look and I want you to congratulate yourself on what a fucking hot fucking girlfriend you have— I want you to yell Congratulations, Me, your fist pumping in the air like a frat boy as you blow your load, right into the sand, just to the left of me, so we cqn see what kind of shape it makes.”
“Oh, and what will you be doing during all this?”
“I’ll be laughing!” She laughed.
“Well, Jesus, Sally, what the fuck is wrong with you?” His face was the face of someone who did not love the person it was on the way to the beach with. She looked at him and did not hit him with the back of her hand. She bit her lip and laughed a little more like she couldn’t help it and, “Sorry, baby” escaped very slowly and sweetly; once she knew it was coming, she let every vowel count.

She touched her palm to his neck while he drove, squinting and laughing and trying to tuck the words back down under her tongue where they came from. They would not come back.

by Meaghan O’ Connell

On Holiday by Chad Michael Ward

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:06:08 -0400

On Holiday by Chad Michael Ward

Keyhole by Ray Fawkes

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Keyhole by Ray Fawkes

I’ll Let You Watch by Star St. Germain

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400

I’ll Let You Watch by Star St. Germain

Muscles Better and Nerves More

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Sometimes I look in the mirror and I think, No wonder you didn’t, couldn’t love me.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and I think, Look who I have become.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and I take off all of my clothes and I turn around and I slide my arms up the wall and stick my ass out just so, just enough, just the way you taught me. I’m already wet by the time I look over my shoulder and into the mirror and crane my neck to see what you see.

What you would see.

I’m sure I don’t always look like this, perfect like this, done up like this; I’m sure my cheeks are redder, my hair tangled, my eyes more desperate and unthinking, my thighs— oh my thighs, and the way I try to cover them when you’re watching, that moment when we’re entangled that I dismiss but is always there. I wash it away here. I brush it off now, in the quiet of my room, with the lights on and the blinds open; my eyes open and my legs open and it’s dark out and you are every man that walks by.

I hold them up and push them together and let them go, again and again and the only conclusion I can come to is that I’m not sure my breasts were my breasts before you looked at them. Before you put an errant hand down the side of my v-neck and held them, one after another, without looking. Before you looked. Before you lifted me up closer to you and I unhooked my bra before you could and, “Aw, that’s the best part,”you said and I laughed and let you take it off and then let you remember, let you be reminded, that the unhooking, well, that was never really the important part. Other men, too, my love, other men before you and my own two hands, but my breasts were not breasts before you took each one into your mouth and made me wonder, still sucking, wetly now, deliberately now, how long this could go on. How long before you touch me, before I come undone beneath the lack of you? And on it went with your face buried in my chest there and my eyes and my fists and my toes all waiting, all wanting, and you, nearly forgetting yourself, but merciful at last, your hand up my skirt now, and around my panty hose, and into my pussy now. And then you kissed me more and I wondered how you knew exactly what I wanted when I wanted it and then you gave it to me and wet, wet, wet, I no longer wondered anything at all.

And what I’m trying to tell you is, that sometimes, now, alone in my room late at night with my lights on, I stand at the mirror and I pull off my shirt I stare at my tits and I pretend I am you, looking, maybe, for the first time.

by Meaghan O’ Connell

Confession by Chad Michael Ward

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Confession by Chad Michael Ward

WE'RE BACK!!! (next week)

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:48:00 -0400

Next week Month 2 of 5Lights kicks off.

Boy, that sentence was slightly less than explosive. Hm. How bout:

MONDAY MONDAY MONDAY!!!!! WE’RE BACK, Y’ALL, GONNA RUN THIS WEBSITE RIGHT DOWN YOUR THROAT WITH A STEAMROLLER OF AWESOME!!!

BE THERE, UNLESS YOU’RE IN JAIL, AND IF YOU ARE, BREAK OUT!!!!!

Yeah, that’s better.

Monday we’ll be starting up with a whole new crew of artists, all geared up and ready to knock your socks off.

{We would humbly request you put on socks, that we make knock them off}

The Crew of Month 2 (or, as Katie West calls them, Team Voltron, because…well…she’s nuts, BUT ADORABLE):

Chad Michael Ward (photography)
Star St. Germain (music)
Laura Taylor (video)
Ray Fawkes (illustration)
Meaghan O’ Connell (writing)

If you know the names, you know what you’re in for, and you’re already thinking about what to do with your socks after they’ve been knocked off.

If you don’t know the names, THAT’S WHY WE HYPERLINKED ‘EM. We’re all in this together, see.

Y’all have yourselves a good weekend, fireworks and barbeques or laughing at the crazy folk in that weird country with the cowboys and the guns.

Be seeing you.

P.S. reblog this, if you please, let your friends, lovers, family, enemies, that kid you hate at the market, let ‘em all know. Let ‘em know we’re coming. And HELL’S COMING WITH US.

HELL’S.

COMING.

WITH US.

by Lou

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:46:03 -0400

by Lou

by Mark Sarmel

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:16:58 -0400

by Mark Sarmel

The Story I Would Never Tell

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 08:58:36 -0400

This is the story I told myself I would never tell, no matter what. You’re so young, so very young and sweet and trusting. You cry at the thought of us not spending our lives together. You’re searching for a home because you don’t feel like you have one, not that house on the hill and not that place across the tracks. And I’m stopping by your work at night, after you close the store, and the streets are wet under the lights and the parking lot is dark but we’re together, alone, for just one moment.

And there’s the part where I follow you home in that blizzard, and your mom thinks maybe I’m an okay guy because I just want you to be safe. I’m watching the snow fall thick across my windshield but as long as I can see you, you’ll be okay. And I’ll be okay. Now it’s summer and we’re going to spend every day together, and we do, me chasing you through the park, you reading my silly poetry out loud, us talking in my folks’ sun-filled living room until you’re asleep on the couch. Now I’m buying those flowers from that stand on State Street, those Shasta daisies named for you. We meet on a hill in the park that day, and I can see you under the trees like a little princess, waiting for me to appear on that little stone pathway where princes might walk.

Now we’re listening to our song, the one where you fix me and I’m the light that guides you home. And we’re blind with love, you say, and people call us silly and young and trouble, and cute and meant-for-each-other too. Now you’re giving back those letters, the ones I wrote over weeks turned months, penned in medium black ink. These are for you, you say. Give them back to me when you mean it. Hopelessly devoted, they say. But never doubt, they say. I still have them.

Now you’re in Europe, just for a few months. We talk over the phone late into the American night and Parisian morning. I love you, you say, in the snow, under the moonlight, outside your brother-in-lawís house. I love you, you say, on a jittery camera, with the wind blowing outside, from France. I love you, you say, in the dark, over the phone, in the early morning hours. I love you.

Now you’re back, looking up at the winter sky with its wispy clouds, hands tucked into a dark peacoat, neck hugged warmly by a white wool scarf, cheeks flushed with cold, feet in bow flats. You havenít yet seen me seeing you, and I enjoy it for one more moment.

Now when I see you it’s like seeing ghosts, outside my window in your wedding dress, asleep in the passenger’s seat while I drive, waiting under the trees of every park with a stone pathway. This is the story I told myself I would never tell, no matter what.

By Sam

by Lou

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:21:53 -0400

by Lou

by Mark Sarmel

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:19:00 -0400

by Mark Sarmel

There Have Been Some Complications

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:59:32 -0400

This is a new thing, see? And new things sometimes do not go/happen/operate/act the way we want them.

You were expecting to see a video here, today. Yep.

And yet, there is no video.

You’re surprised, maybe a little confused, your brain is reading this text, very aware of the fact that it is, in fact, text, and not video.

This is not a mistake.

Video didn’t happen this week. Life intruded, as it does, and because this thing is new, we (and by we I mean us, us what runs this here new thing) didn’t quite have any contigency in place for what would happen if, indeed, one of our things didn’t happen.

There were attempts to make a substitute thing for this missing thing, but the thing of it is, yeah, didn’t work out.

{insert Home Alone face here}

We apologize, we’re still working the kinks out of our project, and learning a bunch about running a project along the way.

Sufficed to say, we’re almost positive we’ve come up with ways to prevent an occurance such as this from coming up again.

But for this week, today, specifically, we’ll take this moment to, instead of entertaining with a video, thank each and every one of you for following this project, showing some interest, telling others, letting us into your lives. We are having loads of fun, and hope that is coming through in the work.

So, thank you. And oops. And hugs.

See you tomorrow.

Easy To Please King

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 01:06:45 -0400

This was the sun: a broken blood vessel on the arm of the horizon, red and orange. This was the sky: purple and gold and blue, clouds swollen like great bruises. This was the rain: the touch of soft fingertips, the sound of a distant crowd, the smell of damp newness.

This was the king: young and ashen and once handsome, tarnished scepter in one hand, hem of ragged cloak in the other, mud-mottled boots resting with him under a tree. This was his crown: long lost, the jewels stripped from it by his enemies, the gold burned from it by his friends. This was his horse Bravo: once white now gray, head held low to graze, hooves chipped and rough, tail wet and mussed by rain.

This was his castle: not one stone left upon another that was not thrown down, an open field charred with torches, the flags of heraldry flapping from spears in the dirt. This was his damsel: long lost, blue eyes and blushing cheeks and puckered lips, brightly brokenhearted, soft and feminine and delicate. This was his knight: armor a curious rust color, sword broken at the hilt, shield with coat of arms struck through, heart stopped by an errant arrow, eyes closed by his king, his body stretched on the other side of the tree like a great granite monument to long dead heroes.

These were the stars: misaligned, no constellations to sail by, no signs to pray by, no bright light but the moon. And this was the moon: God’s faded thumbprint on a cobalt canvas, a half-closed eye afraid to look, a holy teardrop dropping, a silver dollar on black paper, a stepping stone in dark water.

This was today: a hill with a view, his brave horse Bravo, and a place to sit in the shade. He was pleased.

By Sam