Sometimes, life gets its big bum on the remote control and fast forwards through bits, slows things down to insanity-inducing speeds, and just simply warps things for you. The sadistic distortion.

Playback. Reverse. Pause. The obsessive reordering of events, to make sense of it all, to find out the EXACT point where "yes, this is where the train derailed; this is the track at fault". The masochistic distortion.

In either case, it would be nice to pull a Hiro Nakamura and *concentrate* (oh yea, we need a visual of that face now), to clip a few loose ends of our lives - just a little here and there.

To stick to the topic and hand out the previous post's promised media:

'Bringing Out the Dead', directed by Martin Scorcese, was one of my favorite films since it came out when I was finishing up middle school. When a film is on your favorites list for close to a decade, it's hard to pinpoint if it's there because it's good, or because it hits the nostalgia nerve. But I do think this one's worth a watch: it's dark, has a good soundtrack, and sucks you in. It also has some pretty good distorted scenes, yea? Check out the clip I personally uploaded for your viewing pleasure, at the big YouTube box below:



So there's distort: despite your striving for normalcy, and some more: a brought on effort to speed things up (see video below), slow things down to a halt like that circus scene in Big Fish (pushing anti-gravity popcorn out of the way), play things backwards (I've uploaded a song here. I was curious to find out what exactly was going on and it turned out to be Romanian mass and chanting priests played backwards. Yep. Just saved you the confusion, and trouble of finding out), or sort through a mess you've created by using all three functions.


This video is of Noah Kalina taking a photo of himself every day for six years, and putting it all in a video with Carly Comando's excellent piano-playing in the background. He's become quite the Internet celebrity, and if you check out his Flickr page, you can see some stars he's posed (same exact expression) with. Other people have done the same, one being the often Christian Bale-ish Jonathan Keller, who's got video links on that page, as well as tons of interesting stuff on the rest of the site. But for the Noah Kalina video, six years looks pretty damn short now.

And on that note, stop wasting time, postponing your ideas, projects, and life, and get started on something you've always wanted to do, dammit.

Ok, everyone's dismissed.
- m

"Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death." 

The sacred firebird, the phoenix, comes from ancient Egyptian mythology.  At the end of it's life cycle, or when wounded by an enemy, the bird builds a nest of cinnamon twigs and burns itself to ashes along with it.  In order to remain immortal and unharmed, it destroys itself, only to rise again as a newborn, unharmed phoenix.

Sometimes destruction is necessary for creation, or as Frank Zappa put it: "Sometimes you got to get sick before you can feel better."

On a related note, although not about SELF-destruction, is the story of San Francisco Public Library's art project.  In 2001, staff members began finding books - sliced and stashed under shelves - on topics regarding homosexuality/bisexuality, transgenderism, women's issues, and HIV/AIDS.  The books piled up, until more than 600 were found, all destroyed beyond repair.  Instead of throwing them out, they were given to artists and community members, so that art could be created from them.  The initially small-scale project became an international one, leading to the creation of over 200 original art-pieces.  To browse the artwork, click here. And yes, they caught the Serial Killer of Books and charged him with hate crime.

On a completely unrelated note: speaking of serial killers, there's one in my area in Cairo.  It happens to be one of the quietest, least polluted areas (if not THE one) in our chaotic "Umm El-Dunya"; but yes, there's a serial killer targeting women now.  Uhmm, back to related notes:

And the moral of the story kiddos: when the going gets tough, there's a difference between becoming a burn-out and completely going up in flames.  Make sure you keep the line drawn between the two.  When you've been destroyed, you might have to take away even more to earn your tabula rasa.  As the photographer Yousuf Karsh said, "Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness."

Sorry for not posting anything pretty to look at this time.  The next one should be a bit more visually-appealing.

I'll go back to gathering cinnamon twigs now (and I hope I didn't start an itch in any pyromaniacs now, haha).  Play safe.

- m

Blogger has been functioning erratically. They've merged with Google, gone into Beta-testing mode, pulled the "testing" out from under their feet, and fallen.

So I've moved here (temporarily?) until the Blogger people figure things out.

Will be posting properly very soon.

- m

They say it takes 21 days to break a habit.

One day away from setting in the new Resolutions, and that may be an important point to note. Usually, people's New Year's Resos are forgotten by the end of January, only to be resurrected mid-way through December. Along with the annual self-induced swift kick-to-the-behind.

A site dedicated to following goals - throughout the year, instead of focusing on the optimistic Jan 1 gig - is 43 Things. Once you register, you can list your goals, find other people who share the same ones, or search for those who've completed them and offer tips. Those who suffer from wanderlust can check out the related 43 Places.

According to 43 Things, the top 10 goals are (in order):

1. Lose weight (16830 people share this one).
2. Stop procrastinating.
3. Write a book.
4. Fall in love.
5. Be happy.
6. Get a tattoo.
7. Drink more water.
8. Get married.
9. Go on a roadtrip with no predetermined destination.
10. Travel the world (7940 people share this one).

Personally, I think 'Stop Procrastinating' should be #1, as it seems to be the main problem in getting through with the other plans (interchangeable with 'Develop Some Will-Power').

For more instructions on breaking (or making) habits, wiki-how style, check here, here, and here

Although 2006 was one of the most painful years for me, I still haven't sketched out a Reso List. I'm still debating whether I should bother mapping out my year, or go with the flow of it. Either way, looks like change is heading my way.

On a last note, here's a book I picked up for myself because it's funny and has star stickers. Oh yea, me and stars. 101 Things To Do Before You Die lists serious and silly maybe-you-shouldn't stuff (like 'Get Arrested'). Plans to make you famous and infamous. The Do-able, and the Good-Luck-with-That ('Reach 100 Years of Age'). The book has a fun layout and joins the stacks of quirky, yet almost useless, books that have boomed recently.

Well, I hope everyone has a fantastic last day of 2006, and amazing plans lined up for the countdown. And the next day, we'll all be subjected to a lot of "oh-em-jee, I haven't talked to you since last year!"

The next post will me marked '07 ;)

- m

I'm a firm believer in the gray area between the extremes of black and white, of finding a happy medium, of embracing the Golden Mean. But when it comes to art - whether it's traditional, photography, film, animation, or fashion - black and white is beautiful.

An excellent piece of artwork: Angels and Devils, by M.C. Escher. I love the idea, how it's done, and the fact that the majority of people I point it out to usually only see one figure until I point out that there are two. I love this picture, the theme's a big one for me.

There's a great animated film: not the usual Shrek breed, but one that looks like you've picked up a comic book and it came to life. What I like even more for some reason: it's completely black and white. I picked out a clip from my copy of the movie - check out the strobe light in the club scene :) The city/train are nice as well. It's a French film called Renaissance.

And finally: photogaphy. One of my favorite photographers is Philippe Halsman. His work is sharp, contrasted, dark, yet quirkily amusing. Here's his famous portrait of Salvador Dalí (it took 28 attempts to get the jumping Dalí, three thrown cats, and one bucket of tossed water exactly how they wanted it).

And another photograph, In Voluptas Mors, which is very noir in my opinion.

Another interesting side of Halsman's photography, is his "jumpology". Basically, he'd get people to jump for his sessions, with the idea being "when you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping and the mask falls so that the real person appears." You can read more on this (and see a few photos from Philippe Halsman's Jump Book) here.

Well, I'm sure I could go on, but I'll leave it at that.
The next post should hopefully be from Kuwait :)

<3,
-m

So here is my blog's tabula rasa.

I've filed away the few old posts into drafts, and renovated a bit. Apparently I'm geekier than I give myself credit for, considering all the personalization I've managed here.

What you can expect from your visits here:
...well, don't. Expectations tend to ruin things.

But hopefully, this place will slowly fill up with music, film, books, art, photos, lists, youtube click-me's!, fashion, food, links, news (un-political, of course), furniture, local info, quotes, pop-culture, all sprinkled with some personal melodrama.

So - stay tuned; bookmark me.