I have all these unspoken rules about the videos I post, like they have to be really obscure, or something most of my readership (all, what, 3 of you) probably would not have seen. But sometimes I have to break those non-rules and show you something like OK Go… Something that, even if you’ve seen it before, should rock your world once again.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present: WORLD ORDER.
There are many, many crazy people in this world. In some, their brand of ‘crazy’ manifests itself as genius.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the following internet gem is genius, but it certainly is innovative and imaginative. This is a mash-up of 12 Beatles albums (the UK releases), played chronologically at 800x their normal speed. It takes an hour to get through them all and, yes, I did listen to the whole thing.
What can I say? It was tempting. It’s the Beatles! And as some people in my life know, I’m hardcore dedicated to the band and all trivia associated with them. So, I had to listen.
I ate lunch, painted my nails, followed along in iTunes, and experienced this weirdness.
The first few albums were extremely difficult to get through. The songs aren’t really distinguishable and they all just sound like generic… well, generic crap.
But after that, things pick up and the individual albums sort of become different masterpieces on their own. It’s not good as music goes, maybe not even as most experimental creations go, but it is inventive and new, which was all I was looking to get out of it.
My major complaints with this endeavor were:
First, the accompanying video clips are ridiculous. They don’t make any sense, have no context, and (for the most part) aren’t even entertaining or enjoyable to look at.
Second, the breaks between songs should have been omitted. In that way, the creation would have been more novel. It wouldn’t have just been like jamming Beatles songs together; it would have been like a whole new 61-minute song. I would have liked that.
At least spend a couple minutes on it: maybe one minute at the beginning and then about 45 minutes in. Or, if you really can’t stand to listen to it at all, just read Nick Gall’s comment from July 26, 2011. Hilarious.
http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/all_the_beatles_albums_in_sixty_one_minutes/
I am in such a vintage mood lately. I think I’ve even been dreaming in muted palettes. I love it! I wish life (or maybe just summer) were set in vintage tones. (FYI, in this context “vintage” means 30s-40s-50s era, not 70s, like the vintage music videos I showed.)
It’s really inspiring me to decorate my new apartment (when I get it, ugh) in a vintage style. Up until now, I’ve wanted to redecorate in a sort of woodsy nautical style, inspired by the room I occupied at my host parents’ house in Rennes, Bretagne (France). Right now (and for the past eight years of my life), the theme has been a sort of bubbly lime/aqua/blue theme, like you see in the pre-designed bedroom section at Target.
That really fit my life and my personality. In fact, in my bedroom back in Idaho, I had the walls painted a light lime green, sort of like the color of mint ice cream. Yum.
But now, I’m finding that I need something a little more sophisticated, that will really lend itself to working and being in a mindset of getting things done, rather than reading magazines and procrastinating.
Yes, I truly believe that room décor can have an effect on that sort of thing.
Anyway, I’ve been considering the woodsy-nautical theme for quite some time now, but with my recent fascination with all things vintage, I’m coming around to the idea of doing a vintage theme.
The main problem I’ve found is that while the woodsy-nautical look is simple, clean, and minimal (ideal for me and for NOT being a hoarder), the vintage look is a bit more crowded and, like… stuff-oriented. There are definitely nautical colors, but there aren’t really vintage colors. You can’t pull of “vintage” without actually having the vintage stuff, but you can pull off a nautical look without having boats everywhere.
Suggestions?
A woman named Ingrid Dabringer has made portraits and drawings using maps of cities, countries, continents… anything. Dabringer’s map illustrations were recently featured on Laughing Squid.
This is my favorite of Dabringer’s illustrations, created with a map of the Phillipines:
I'm not a very good artist. But I've been reading a lot of webcomics lately, and I was listening to the radio and wondering what was interesting enough in my life to make a webcomic out of... and then I heard this. It's a true story, though I paraphrased some of the news. Click to enlarge the image!!
A haunting moon over Venice. This was the night I got desperately lost for 2 hours around midnight, then went back to my hostel to sleep for 6 hours and get 35+ mosquito bites. Nevertheless, Venice was still my favorite city in Italy!
I have a single picture to share with you today, and I don’t think it needs much explanation, except that I took it in a garden in Rennes not far from the school I was attending. Also, there was a tree that accompanied it.
Tree of friendship between religions
I wrote a paper in French! It’s really short, and it’s about a play/playwright of whom you’ve probably never heard, but I’m posting it anyway.
This is about the element of the absurd in Eugene Ionesco’s “La cancatrice chauve.”
At the end, there’s a sort of “blague” (in French, that’s like an inside joke) about the English, because at the beginning of the play the characters make a huge deal about being English. They’re French, obviously.
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Depuis que je suis au Paris et vois <<La cancatrice chauve>> en scène, je me demande, qiu dit les mensonges, et qui dit la vérité ? Par exemple, qui sonne à la porte quand Mme Smith a ouvert la porte trois fois ? Est-ce que c’est le pompier, ou est-ce que c’est personne ? Si l’histoire marche logicalement, Mme Smith ou le pompier doit mentir. C’est impossible (ou c’est absurd) pour l’histoire marcher sans des mensonges. Tous les vérités ne marchent pas ensembles.
Il y a trop des situations possibles, et on doit analyser chaque situation comme une problème des mathématiques.
Les constantes sont :
Mme Smith ouvre la porte trois fois,
Le pompier se présente le quatrième fois.
Les variables sont :
Mme Smith dit qu’il n’y était personne à la porte les prémières trois fois,
Le pompier dit qu’il était près de la porte pour trois quarts d’heure,
Il dit qu’il n’avez vu personne,
Il dit qu’il n’a pas sonné.
Si Mme Smith dit la vérité et, en actualité, elle n’a vu personne, c’est certain que le pompier a dit au moins qu’un mensonge : il n’était près de la porte depuis trois quarts d’heure, OU il a vu quelqu’un, OU il a sonné à la porte. Si Mme Smith ment, si elle a vu quelqu’un, le pompier aussie doit dire au moins qu’un mensonge.
Si les deux ne mentent pas, l’histoire ne march pas logicalement. L’absurd est difficile pour moi, parce que je veux que les histoires sont sensibles. Quand je dois faire les maths et élaborer beaucoup des situations possibles afin de le comprendre, ça me rend fou ! Mais enfin je crois que les personnages sont fous, pas moi. Ils sont anglais, non ?
A couple things:
First, I StumbledUpon this story, and loved it:
One day an old Native American grandfather was talking to his grandson. He said, “There are two wolves fighting inside all of us - the wolf of fear and hate, and the wolf of love and peace.”
The grandson listened, then looked up at his grandfather and asked, “Which one will win?”
The grandfather replied, “The one we feed.”
Second, this video merits the next 7 minutes you have free. It’s called “Haiti’s Enduring Creativity.” There are some amazing quotes about music in there, plus some great live performance clips and lots of great Haitian accents and dialects! (The video opens in a new window.)
I must give a shout-out to an all-time favorite character of mine, Winnie-the-Pooh. It’s his birthday today!
from Wikipedia.org
I can’t imagine my childhood without Winnie-the-Pooh, both in Disney form and then, when I was old enough, in classic book form of the actual tales.
Eventually, I even graduated to reading The Tao of Pooh, which is an excellent book by Benjamin Hoff. Fun fact: Benjamin Hoff graduated from the school I currently attend, The Evergreen State College, with a degree in Asian Art in 1973. In the short bio of him in the back of The Tao of Pooh, he jokes that he doesn’t remember what he “majored” in, and that it didn’t really matter anyhow.
So this is my ode to Pooh, who deserves it. Pooh remains one of the only heroes of timeless literary fiction who really has his heart in the right place. Also, I remember always being struck by the uniquely excellent relationships between the several main characters: Pooh, Tigger, Kanga, Roo, Owl, and (how could we forget) Eeyore. And wasn’t there a rabbit? Anyway, happy birthday to Pooh, the most memorable bear around.
My class wrote brief papers last week about what we thought it meant to be an artist. This is what I wrote:
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When I studied abroad in France last spring quarter, I spent two weeks focused on defining art. With as much as I did and thought during those two weeks and since then, I came up with a “definition” that seems to satisfy me: art is the product of a conscious or unconscious creative effort that inspires or touches at least one viewer (or listener, etc.). If it “touches” someone, I mean that that person reacts to the art in some way, perhaps with an emotion, memory, or art of his or her own.
So though I’m sure it would/will take me at least as long to “define an artist, at this point I believe an artist is the person who produces art, the product of a conscious or unconscious creative effort. There doesn’t have to be an intention to “produce art,” but there does have to be a creative urge and the intention to make the effort and follow through with it—as in, beginning to make the physical representation of a creative urge.
For instance… during the break, there were two guys behind me playing guitar, and in ten minutes they managed to play the intros to three of my favorite songs. I can be fairly sure they didn’t intend to inspire me, and they certainly didn’t know their efforts were going to be recognized in my paper, but it’s a perfect example of the cycle of creativity and artistry that I imagine when I think of the inspiration feeding art. The guy playing guitar is suddenly and artist (as recognized by me) because he created something that inspired me. Perhaps his subtle compensation is my recognition, even if he doesn’t know it.
I’ve never ever shared something I’ve drawn on this blog before… and it is with great trepidation that I do so now. I hardly ever draw anything and when I do, usually only one pair of eyes sees it. However, 1) I have no proof anymore that any more than one pair of eyes sees even this blog, and 2) my parents liked this sketch. So… I’m sharing it now.
I sketched this (I can’t even bring myself to say I “drew” it) in Bordeaux, watching a woman walk away from a park bench. She was wearing this magnificent fur coat (it was May in the south of France) and she was ancient. I had eyed her sitting alone on her park bench with this faraway look in her eyes, rough grey bobbed hair being tossed a bit by the wind… and I was a bit sad to see her go, actually.
Anyway, she walked away.
(c) JoSahlin, May 2010
Did a little Photoshop work on this picture my mom took of a sunset in her kayak. I’m no PS whiz and I know this is far from professional, but I thought there were some cool effects.
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