acrobatics everyday @ uc of irvine

hey, i have gone a long time without posting anything and while, i do have a handful of things i could talk about, im going to post about this great group of kids at the university of irvine. they organize shows and other events around the campus. they are called acrobatics everyday. these guys and girls host shows for bands like mount eerie, ponytail, the mae shi, starfucker and so on. this is pretty much the closest form of culture to where i live (i exaggerate, i mean the only form of culture i can identify and/or enjoy). please show these guys your support by donating a dollar or two every once in a while. shows in orange county are almost non-existent, so when something like acrobatics comes along, its a great relief. visit acrobatics everyday!

amazing projects.

here for you are three great projects i've found on the internet. the first is one i found quite a while ago. theres this man, david horvitz, and he has friends in this band called xiu xiu. he takes lots of photographs and does a lot of living. he has a website called davidhorvitz.com and on that site theres a section which allows people to send him money in exchange for really neat things. i dont want to start and try to explain because it might turn you off from the site. so, here is the IF site. i hope you send him something. i think it's one of the neatest ideas in a while. enjoy.


the second one is brought to you by stefan riebel. the purpose of the site is as follows: "Since February 2007 I fill white balloons with my breath and send them to friends and relatives all over the world. They destroy these balloons in a place and a way they choose and set my breath free. For a short time while the air as an essential part of me is included into the surrounding of the chosen space i will be present."
get a balloon! destroy it somewhere special to you! being everywhere

lastly, i found this great site through a friend where you can dial a number and then have your voice projected through a loudspeaker. the sound is projected onto the nearby village of dale. the village is located in norway. hopefully, youll think of something great to say. i still haven't! telemegaphone dale!!

ffffound theme of the day.

if you are not at all familiar with ffffound yet then now is the time to become familiarized!! ffffound is this great user based picture site in which interesting pictures are uploaded daily. the only way to register is to receive an invite from an already existing user. ive found myself getting lost in many of these kinds of sites. todays found ffffound theme(hehe) is jigglin pictures!

a symborska poem

Tortures
Wislawa Szymborska

Nothing has changed.
The body is susceptible to pain,
it must eat and breathe air and sleep,
it has thin skin and blood right underneath,
an adequate stock of teeth and nails,
its bones are breakable, its joints are stretchable.
In tortures all this is taken into account.

Nothing has changed.
The body shudders as it shuddered
before the founding of Rome and after,
in the twentieth century before and after Christ.
Tortures are as they were, it's just the earth that's grown smaller,
and whatever happens seems right on the other side of the wall.

Nothing has changed. It's just that there are more people,
besides the old offenses new ones have appeared,
real, imaginary, temporary, and none,
but the howl with which the body responds to them,
was, is and ever will be a howl of innocence
according to the time-honored scale and tonality.

Nothing has changed. Maybe just the manners, ceremonies, dances.
Yet the movement of the hands in protecting the head is the same.
The body writhes, jerks and tries to pull away,
its legs give out, it falls, the knees fly up,
it turns blue, swells, salivates and bleeds.

Nothing has changed. Except for the course of boundaries,
the line of forests, coasts, deserts and glaciers.
Amid these landscapes traipses the soul,
disappears, comes back, draws nearer, moves away,
alien to itself, elusive, at times certain, at others uncertain of its own existence,
while the body is and is and is
and has no place of its own.

(via wood s lot)

new beverly cinema in los angeles

for the past 30 years this modest theater has been running and playing great independent, foreign, and cult classic films. the quality of the seats, floors, etc are rather low but i seem to enjoy it even more. today at 3 and 7 they will be showing the motion picture Network (1976) for the last day. they have been showing it since thursday! sadly i dont think ill be able to make it.

network is most famous for the line, 'im mad as hell and im not gonna take it anymore'. those words were immortalized in one of the rants of the main character. the broadcasting network in the film runs into poor ratings, so in order to raise them they exploit the rants and raves of howard beale. i really loved this film and if you havent seen it, check a preview of it or two on youtube and decide for yourself!

official site for the new beverly cinema

be safe

square america

i figured the rate at which the posts were coming would come to a ridiculous crawl but to all zero of you heres a photo site that i have loved for a while.

so here for you is a site called Square America. it is an assortment of pictures ranging from the 1900s-1990s. the site is centered around the more rural parts of america rather than the hustle and bustle of the city. the pictures definitely feel more intimate and seem to catch a lot of great moments. its basically a virtual slideshow of the what the heart of america was like at the time. i have really enjoyed browsing through and i hope you do too. here are a few pictures to give you a sample.





be safe, everyone.

marie-flore

heres a lovely video of the awesome marie-flore playing her very gentle song 'half past three'. the recorded version sounded very polished but i'm glad i was unexpectedly surprised. she can be found on myspace. she has also just released a great 7 inch, which you all should look into buying if you like her. i'm excited to hear more from her.
be safe.

we versus death

nazim hikmet-on death again

My spouse,
my soul and essence
Hatiché Pirayendé,
I’m thinking about death,
it means arteriosclerosis
begins in me... -
One day
as it snows,
or
one night,
or
in the heat of one noon
which of us first,
how
and where we shall die?
How
and what will be
the last sound or the colour
the one dying hears or sees,
the first movement of the one left behind,
the first words
the first meal?
Maybe we shall die far apart.
The news
will come in screams,
or they will just allude,
and leave alone
the one left behind...
And the one left behind
will be lost in the crowd.
It means, master, it is life...
And all these possibilities
in what year of the 1900’s
which month
which day
what hour
My spouse,
my soul and essence
Hatiché Pirayendé,
I’m thinking about death,
about our life passing.
I’m sad
at ease
and haughty.
Which of us first,
how
and wherever we die,
you and I
loved each other
and the greatest cause of human beings
– we fought for it –
we can say
“We lived.”

nice shirt, andrew moore

here for you today i have a great interview which was posted via jorg colberg weblog. jorg and andrew had a great interview and they touched on some pretty neat stuff. especially about the lack of humanity in contemporary photography.

a preview of andrews work

hop along, leonard cohen

this video features frances quinlan, known as hop along, queen ansleis, covering the great leonard cohen song 'chelsea hotel #2'

i found the artist through a link on the street smart cyclist myspace page and terribly late may i add. frances plays these very folksy and twangy acoustic songs in a voice that some would describe as 'catlike'. despite the number of yodels and squeaks in her voice, i cant help but love it. she released her first album 'freshman year' in 2005 and is now awaiting a new release sometime this year. live videos of her songs can also be found on ifyoumakeit, a site which displays videos of great girls and guys who for the most part call their home the northeast. her lyrics cute and include topics range from hunting to flying kites in the rain and throwing tin cans at bystanders. my favorites songs has to be 'the goose and the wren' and it is one of the most emotionally satisfying song ive heard from an acoustic artist. it's a great freaking sing along as well. she's the louder counterpart to her friend wheatie mattiasich, which i love as well. wheatie is so much more folksy and subtle than frances. both ladies are great in their own respects. i love everything about frances. as cheesy as it may sound, i definitely feel a great sense of passion from her voice. shes not afraid to yell or fluctuate her voice to reflect her mood. i hope something moves you. goodbye.

the only moment we were alone

here are some photographs from chromogenic. i love the quality of them. the one i posted in the middle might be one of my favorites. mainly because it reminds me so much of the cover of that Double Nickels on the Dime album by Minutemen. their most recognized song to date might the song jackass adopted as their theme song. mike watt is still performing and doing awesome things and everyone still misses d boon.
be safe.

brazil

i learned of this movie's existence through a favorite page of mine, wood s lot. this film was directed by the only non-briton in the monty python gang. yes! terry gilliam, which is odd considering the despondent atmosphere of the film. sam lowry, the main character, is another cog in the machine and does little to change it. the only way in which he does escape are in his dreams. soon, both his dreams and his reality start to blur together. the state of the world in which he lives in has grown to fear the actions of the 'terrorists'. sam works a government job under a department that serves the needs of that fear. the best way to describe the film is to mesh together both the dystopian nature of 1984 by george orwell and the slapstick comedies of the pythons. the sets were beautiful for its time. its a movie that requires a number of views to fully appreciate and understand. enjoy.
this is one of its trailers

my purpose

• articulating my thoughts has not always been one of my outstanding qualities. this is why the first post for me might be the hardest. basically, this blog will serve as my virtual pool of thoughts. i will dump anything i find of interest. very rarely, however, will i treat this like a sort of intangible shoulder to cry to or to vent to. i hope anything i post will chisel you, shock you, fill you, spill you, or lift you. enjoy. the picture in my title can be found through ether elegia.