thoughtgraph(ies)

2010-01-29T00:38:00.008+08:00

Photos and accompanying thoughts have moved to

hhttp://thoughtgraphy.wordpress.com/

Miscellaneous bits and pieces will eventually migrate.

Come over to the other side.

meeting someone else.

2010-01-28T22:11:00.003+08:00

It was as if the expression was such a powerful force of energy. Her happiness was open on her face, and in her nimble hands; fingers working a soft sheet -now rolled, now thin spindles- of tissue. To look at her was to plug in to a common field of shared joy. I was reeled in. Her face was an even fawn canvas as her lips curved slightly in a happy half-smile. It seemed the spirit of wonder and glee had effused through her very body and flitted away, touching very slightly then escaping the solid boundaries of her mouth, lighting the air around her in a soft electric glow. There was no singular way of observing her countenance; what was animated was gently infused, and held steady in her private reverie. Smooth brows, lifted lids, confident nose, and a mouth made to always smile. There was no pout in her posture. Her tan leather bracelets and sandals claimed freedom more than fashion. Her red bag fit a simple sagged form on her lap which sat ordinarily under a skirt of yellow and orange. An old scab on her left knee, the only punctuation on legs that looked used to activity. A thin band around her elfin hair betrayed hippie inclinations. But therein the word 'betrayal' reveals the wonder: she simply was. And to chance upon her unwritten thoughts was to share in the same rapture.

This is different from the delight a young child might find himself in. She had consciousness, and a tumultous age. She was aware of the world, but stayed instead, with the light within. And yes I did wonder, just once, the reason for her joy. A romantic date? But she sat clean and upright, not slumped in the sensual aftermath of romance. A comic moment? But her expression was placidly bright, not mired in the fast tangles of witticisms. It doesn't matter. She'd sat, and was.

Haiti earthquake

2010-01-14T22:25:00.005+08:00

[ haiti. all photos from the Times online Photo Gallery]

[ . Eduardo Munoz Reuters]

Thousands of homeless people sat on the darkened streets of Port-au-Prince in a daze or gathered in public squares, singing hymns.

The headlines did not lie. 12 January 2010 saw tragedy crush an ill-equipped yawing mousetrap of an island.

Comment from a blogger in Haiti:

I didn’t actually fall on the ground, but I stumbled around quite a bit. When the tremors ceased, a large dust cloud was rising from the building a few doors down.
A 3 story school full of teenage girls had collapsed. I stood around looking stupid for longer than I’d like to admit. I looked at the truck from Toyota, tried to call my wife (the service was out) and looked around me at people’s reactions.
Virtually everyone reacted in strange ways. Eventually, I went to the school and started working to pull trapped students from the wreckage.
The work was very hard because I was working by myself. People would come up and shout into the wreckage, “Is so-and-so inside?” at the top of their lungs repeatedly.
... I got one girl out, who was very frantic. I told her to stop shouting and pray for help.
She was about 10 feet deep under the collapsed cement roof of the building. At one point I went and borrowed a hammer from someone to break up the large piece of cement that she was trapped behind. The aftershocks scared the crap out of me, and I really didn’t like being under that cement slab. There was an obviously dead woman under the slab with us.
When the girl was out, I took my hammer and moved over to find the next trapped girl. All I could see was her face and left arm, and she frantically called out to me. I asked her to calm down because it would help me to work and asked her to pray for both of us.
... There was some sort of object behind that rubble and when I went to move it it turned out to be another girl’s bottom. The girl cried out but I could barely hear her – her whole head was underneath rubble.
At this point I began to realize that I was in over my head. All I had was a hammer, and it was quickly becoming pitch dark with twilight fading and no electricity anywhere. I tried to borrow a flashlight, but it was impossible.
I had a moment of feeling intense helplessness. After thinking and praying for a minute, I told Jacqueline that I had to leave her and find more help. I couldn’t do anything without a flashlight, and she needed to keep praying and remember that her parents were coming to look for her.
I walked 4 or 5 miles to a place where I could get a bus, then got on one eventually made it home just after 9pm. On my way home, I resolved to return to Port au Prince the next day with 2 trucks full of tools and workers to do whatever we could.
I met a guy on the bus who was holding a sandwich. He had left his house to go buy a sandwich when the earthquake hit. He returned to his home to find it flattened, then went to the school that he teaches at to find it flattened. With nothing left but a sandwich in his hand, and $7 in his sock, he set out for Cap Haitien to be with the rest of his family.
I slept a little bit last night even though I kept thinking of Jacqueline and her classmate stuck in the rubble, in the dark. This morning all of the workers enthusiastically loaded all the tools we could use into the trucks along with food and water and set off for Port au Prince.
I took them to the school and quickly made my way to the place Jacqueline and the other student were but both of them were dead.

-Chris Rollings

... On the bus he met a man named Amos who had gone out to get a sandwich and minutes later found his house was flattened as was the school where he worked. He took his sandwich and got on a bus headed for Cap Haitien because everything that had made up his life in Port was gone. Amos is sleeping in our dorms and when I took him sheets and towels and asked how he was doing he simply said, with a smile, “M’ pa pi mal, gras a Dieu. ” I’m not bad, by the grace of God.
-from his wife, Leslie Rollings

the birdwatcher's creed...

2010-01-12T14:48:00.003+08:00

there's this online mag with the most motley crue of articles around, from obama power to greener tyres to albanian fashion to being suspicious of happiness (or something specific like those)... i like that UTNE doesn't seek to be higher (or holier) than thou in their pursuit of knowledge; UTNE simply delights in exploring ideas. any one who reads them will find something to engage them, and hardly ever be lost or put off by either language or over-rhetoric. i say that as a happy reader of over 5 years.

here's a curious piece about bird-watching:

I find this fidelity to the truth to be one of the most attractive aspects of bird-watching. We all like to brag about the birds we see and hear, but we are also united in our rueful admissions that this or that bird has escaped us this season, this year, or even all our lives so far.

We look forward to the moment when we can truthfully lay claim to a particular bird, or to a higher tally of birds seen this month or this year, or in this place or that.

And when we finally reach our goal, we will tell our friends and fellow bird-watchers, who will share our gratification, because they will have every reason to believe us.

isn't that such a nice phrase- 'fidelity to the truth'.

inspiration.

2010-01-02T23:00:00.003+08:00

[ .from Jessica Naomi [flickr])

in flashes and bright sparks,
they excite, choke-
there seems neither next nor past,
it takes me up in its life.

then gone and spent,
i'm left changed.
there seems no reason nor impetus
to explain the event.

Stolen Auschwitz sign.

2009-12-21T23:03:00.004+08:00

[ Poland, Auschwitz. from the BBC ]

Four dawns ago, the sign bearing the Nazi slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" was stolen.

It was neither murder nor rape. Nothing monied misplaced. But along with many others, I felt a quiet shock. And learned, again, that in the vast territory that is the human world, no one thing is uniformly sacred.

Today, the five thieves were apprehended. The 5-metre sign was found cut into three pieces.

We forget, dismember, pillage. And in undermining the markers of our humanity, we undermine our own.

And oh yes, those thieves were 'art thieves'.

Manmade: Captured Lighting series

2009-12-04T23:09:00.006+08:00

...which is truly electrifying.

[ oak tree. by bert hickman]

[ Lichtenberg sculpture. by bert hickman]

and so it looks like that (in plastic)! The famous Lichtenberg design is named after German physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. He'd recorded the patterns in 1777- in what seems like an equally complex manner.

The artist's website is also a lil psychedelic. He explains how, in a youtube vid (no, it does not involve flying a kite in wet weather).

proof.

2009-10-23T23:29:00.003+08:00

that nature inspires art,

is art.

[ . British Wildlife Photographer winner: "Damselfly silhouette" by Ross Hoddinott ]

[ . Urban Wildlife winner: "The ultimate flock" by Lorne Gill]

[ . Animals Portraits winner: "Gannet portrait" by Ben Hall ]
[ . Wildlife Behaviour winner: "Blackbirds Fighting" by David Slater]

from the timesonline photo gallery.

something i felt today.

2009-10-22T21:44:00.003+08:00

[? . from whysharksmatter ]

(one of the comments)
Despite all the knowledge and technology we possess we continue to destroy things that we don’t fully understand.

us people always seemed to me more self-conscious than self-aware, more inclined to the strange Other than attuned to mapping our interconnectedness. and i'd always thought the devastation on plants and animals a tragic evidence.

there may be mtv* specials galore courtesy of al gore campaigns and wonderful mega-documentaries [see list of EXCITES to the right] out to showcase the world we could be losing, but so long as we only see in parts and in terms of Other..

sharks have been pretty much elevated and distorted in the consciousness of most singaporeans. they are exoticised sleek machines from waters far and away. they also make for delicious sharks fin soup. they are both mythical and part of tradition; a power combo hard to change.

those are two reasons why i'm anticipating “Why Sharks Matter: Using New Environmentalism to Show The Economic And Ecological Importance of Sharks, The Threats They Face, and How You Can Help", by David Shiffman (scientist guy in above pic). follow his shark-crusades here.

*by the way, mtv videos always hit the 'cool' mark..

MTV Global Warming Campaign from Justin Gedzus on Vimeo.

fatvertising.

2009-10-07T23:52:00.004+08:00

[ usa, ny. anti-obesity ad]

The ads — which cost about $277,000 to develop over three fiscal years, including money for creative work and focus groups — will run in 1,500 subway cars for three months. (The $90,000 cost of the subway advertisement comes through a private donor, the Fund for Public Health in New York.)

someone asks: but are these images we really need clogging the arteries of our subways every day?
i: yes, i think so. i think we sometimes need a jolt that things aren't sugar, nice, and everything innocent (everything that's put) out there.

it nicely ties in with the other bit we often have in our hands. the burger, otherwise to be known as the bad bits of unhappy cows genetically engineered by the companies.

the real green engineering.

2009-10-04T20:46:00.003+08:00

[ india, cherrapunji. rootbridges. all other images from theoriens ]

what happens when man can't build a bridge.

why, grow one of course. this northeastern bit of india is one of the wettest places on earth (monsoon winds from the bay of bengal ensure that), streaked by many swift rivers and mountain streams. it is also native to the rubber fig, its use as a bridge better explained by its scientific name ficus elastica.

for generations now, people have been splicing betel nut tree trucks and guiding roots of the rubber fig through them.

the literally named 'double decker root bridge' can hold over fifty people at a time, which already include quite a few tourists.

this just took my breath away. apparently it also takes ten- fifteen years to be fully functional; i'm glad that here at least, human patience (inevitable or not) has allowed such a feat testament to the harmony nature and man can achieve. tolkien would be proud.

the golden spruce.

2009-10-03T00:31:00.006+08:00

[ northwest, united states. from STRIKE ]

i got alot more than i'd bargained for when i picked up the golden spruce. tree, land, wind, sea, air and man, -above all, man- i did not realise the combustable combination they were.

take a long look here: imagine how a tree could have grown through centuries to become so; imagine its place and what it fought, what it strove for, its comrades in the pursuit of life. imagine how man first came upon the giant; imagine how man saw how it could be used, and how he thought up clever ways to harvest it all; ruthless being conquering being-
[march 04, 1906, at rock pile creek, sonoma, california]

i'd turned myself towards rows of page-bound greenery. i was looking for an insight into the inanimate mass we both depend on and plunder. oil, water, air, fuel, crops.. then forests: stoic browns and proud plumes, quiet and relentless, all knowing, still, wilderness, i'd thought. how quaint my ideas were. but the story of a man in the middle of it all is indeed all wilderness, all madness.

from chapter 14, after the tree falls,

al wanderer, hadwin's former colleague from lillooeit, could have been speaking for all woodsman through history when he looked back over his own empty corner of british columbia and said, "good god. i didnt think it was possible to log this much."

"man", (George Perkins Marsh) wrote more than 140 years ago, "who even now finds scarce breathing room on this cast globe, cannot retire from the Old World to some yet undiscovered continent, and wait for the slow action of such causes to replace...the Eden he has wasted." That year (1864) saw the creation of california's yoesmite state reserve, which included the continent's first federally protected trees.

by 1919, just as a group of wealthy californians was forming the Save the Redwoods League, the first portable chain and circular saws began appearing on the cover of Scientific American.

einarson picked up his train of thought: "another reason i like falling," he said, "is i like walking around in old-growth forests. it's kind of an oxymoron i guess - to like something and then go out and kill it."

When dust dance, far.

2009-09-26T20:51:00.003+08:00

[australia, sydney. 1-3. from Brendon Thorne/Getty Images]
[ 4. from Shisberg]

Sydney Morning Herald:
... And everywhere there was dust. It coated footpaths, shop floors, train stations and any other surface the wind could penetrate.

Cityrail trains carried it through tunnels and into underground stations.

"When I got on the train at Cronulla all our seats were covered in this red dust," Robyn Jaques said.
... Up to 75,000 tonnes of dust per hour was blown into the waters off the coast and particle pollution was the highest on record - over 15,000 micrograms per cubic metre at times, when a normal day would see less than 20 micrograms.

The choking dust was far thicker than bushfire smoke, which commonly contains about 500 micrograms per cubic metre.

... Loose red dirt from the arid outback was blown east by strong winds, in what was described by The Sydney Morning Herald as "the day the country blew into town".

... Strong winds following the hottest August on record sucked up dust from a decade-long drought in what experts said was the biggest such incident to hit Sydney since 1942.

joy in a tin can/ get yer fix

2009-09-15T23:15:00.005+08:00

[ . www.theflowmarket.com]

anything can be sold.

it doesnt have to be real.

call my berlin bluff.

2009-09-15T22:11:00.005+08:00

[berlin. stilinberlin.blogspot.com ]

when demands build and duty bears down, one turns to comfort- comfort eats and comfort looks. and i love stilinberlin for letting me indulge in a little 'action-imagination'- it's the place you go to to live out all your incarnations and play out your most heroic, bravest deeds.

whether an intellectual hobo or a mother who builds jet engines, everyone's a revolutionary. and everyone's implicated in it.

longtime readers to this blog will know my ongoing infatuation with berlin. but it is also a deep respect. there, the only rule is to be real, and reality is tough, not always nice, and always needs a keep on keeping on. how do i tell? no one dresses like they care what everyone else thinks (ugh-ly you say? fingers to you and your prada bag- and i outfinger you 'cos theyre in ragtag mittens); everyone dresses like they think, playfully, bitterly, about what they themselves stand for.

lately, stilinberlin has gone younger and gone upscale, becoming more polished. but well, eager young energy. why not, if its the berliners.

a cap so fine.

2009-07-13T23:02:00.006+08:00

[ uk, cardiff. the senedd]

[ usa, illinois. bahá'í house of worship]

[ turkey. erzurum holy mosque. all photos via thedeputydog]

(sometimes i think) the very act of tilting the head up is reverence of one beyond yourself, is contemplation of a possible other.

[ israel, mount carmel. enchantedceiling]

hands.

2009-07-12T19:30:00.007+08:00

[ singapore . restaurant(?)]

looking at the chef engaged in his work, precise metal in motion, and hands, his hands moulding and kneading, one felt it was not a job cut out for many. it reminds me:

laborare est orare

(never complicated responsibilities) the essence of it breathes honesty, (not drudgery) its directive simple. and when else do we feel free and simultaneously vital than when we are engaged in that we love; when else do does one feel in harmony with something beyond his lonesome self. we're physical beings in a physical world. shall we not wrestle this and remember how we feel alive when in motion, in tandem with that we enjoy and express, and with that we believe in?

Teach me, my God and my King,
In all things thee to see,
And what I do in any thing,
To do it as for thee:

Not rudely, as a beast,
To runne into an action;
But still to make thee prepossest,
And give it his perfection.

A man that looks on glasse,
On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it passe,
And then the haev'n espie.

All may of thee partake:
nothing can be so mean,
Which with his tincture (for thy sake)
Will not grow bright and clean.

A servant with this clause
Makes drudgerie divine:
Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
Makes that and th' action fine.

This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold:
For that which God doth touch and own
Cannot for lesse be told.

the elixir.
-george herbert

(try putting into words/ tell me what you mean)

2009-07-10T22:56:00.005+08:00

[ . ein tintendropfen from deinhero2 ]

there was a bird in the kitchen today. i went near, and it was so shocked it flew out and hit the window glass. flapped for a few seconds, almost hovering, trying to go through. then fell.

.....- hc.

feel better when

2009-06-29T23:01:00.005+08:00

[stonehenge. naturewhispers]
'd been looking and looking.
this time, the search was
not for an 'it' factor.
but hunger, to
know, feel, be,
how it must have been like-

and then. as always, others have said it first, and always the same.

i think and think and think,
i've thought myself out of happiness one million times,
but never once into it.
- everything is illuminated. jonathan safran foer.

..and it,
it never is what one thinks it is.

[ .telegraph ]

365,000 people.
4.58am.
the northern solstice is the summer solstice is the winter solstice, depending on.
when the sun directly sits above the constellation cancer ,

- or not.

seeing is inspiring/ god is in the details.

2009-06-22T22:52:00.007+08:00

[ holland, keukenhof gardens. from yx]

i once heard, someone say, that god is in the details. more precisely, someone had given it as a quick, deliberate, advice to a young greenhorn, all too quick to dash impressive strokes. but good intentions, boldly executed, sometimes neglect the underlying lines that tie logic together.

god is in the details-

i had forgotten pleasures and ideals that express themselves on earthly plains; i did not see that ideas and wishes are delineated according to simple lines. a person of heart helped me realise the first, and im glad -to keep with fairytale- one of letters taught me the second.

to live and write simply must be the greatest challenge of them all. we must love, uncomplicated, unburdened and complete. we must learn to express with both ardour and clarity. and for each, im learning the importance of first receiving openly, without complications or burden. daily i find we live messily and speak too crudely; daily i wake up vaguely remembering and continue on blind.

-that god is in the details.

and in the details of now.
a book going into the in-betweens of the writer who spawned that quote:

Le bon Dieu est dans le detail

for every each that we do not even imagine,
let us be vigilant for every that we know of

?

make death.

2009-06-17T22:49:00.005+08:00

[ uk. from may miles thomas' the devil's plantation]

-that reveals the hidden tracks that cross the city, connecting the old and new. Here May stumbles over the city's myths and stomps on its remains: city of murder, architecture, industry, ill-health, feral violence, petty corruption, neddery, new money, crime and the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Not so much Glasgow as Glasgone:

"Several years ago on a rare trip to London, I struggled to tell an acquaintance about an idea I had for a project based in Glasgow. I had only a loose notion – possibly some kind of film, possibly a piece of writing - about my love/hate relationship with my home city. At that time my Garnethill flat overlooked the middens behind a Hill Street tenement and my thoughts towards the city were dark. It’s about murder and architecture, I told my friend, unaware of my choice of words. Not death, but murder."

the arrogance of fools is a different breed

you remake into dust
what was grown by time itself.

and.

so we do,
but flippantly so? demeaningly so? must the play of life be a mechanical murder of being and principle.

[ .the cove. movie.]

advertising for human rights.

2009-06-13T20:30:00.008+08:00

[ kim jong il. all images from eagereyes.org ]

(a data-ack!)

id recently been surprised that government communications and public areas were commissioned to private agencies (but- of course. if even water that flows is). more precisely, i was almost touched that simple figures such as train station 'exit' signs might have been produced by world leading graphic design companies- very lovely that functional pieces could be rethought for better expression, to go easy-on-the-eyes, and perhaps even lean into an art quirk or two..

so why not (one of) the world's biggest PR agencies do up an ad for the International Society for Human Rights Watch. as Data.gov goes live, german ogilvy and mather go funny:

[mahmoud amadinejad.]

...nice timing too, while kim flexes his nuclear/nuclear ambitions, and iran re-elects its dictator as president. perhaps we really do need the selling power of commercials to remind ourselves of what we ought to fight for, what we ought to be living for.

btw, despite the hype over his main rival reformist mousavi (and his equally reformist wife) and the supposed unpredicting gloom of iran's economy:

Az Zaqqum · 13 hours ago
Astagfirallah!! WTF??

What happened to the women's vote???

Can't believe it.....neither can my dog......woof!

For those who don't know, walking your dog is illegal in Iran.

y.z. kami's portraits.

2009-06-09T20:55:00.004+08:00

[ .by y.z. kami. via dailyserving ]

"kami emphasizes the flux between matter and spirit, life and mortality, the outer layer and the inner soul."

this line hit it for me. is the in-between an ever seductive intangible. its a accessible tie to both extremes; it offers definitions for both.

it promises all but reminds of nothingness.

mmmm- maybe that is why we go on to only stare?

when cows walk on man's land; when children grow under man's grand plans.

2009-06-06T06:26:00.005+08:00

[senegal, yoff, dakar. all pictures via the deputy dog ]

[india, dharavi, mumbai. ]

[indonesia, citarum river, west java.]

[italy, naples]

a piece of greeting meat.

2009-06-06T06:06:00.007+08:00

[ . from lovecreative ]

there's oh so many things one can read into this. but oh well.

name card design meat and greet meet and greet meat to greet greet meat man of meat man for meat man and meat skin flesh raw power hunt dominance relations earth red blood meet self meat neat suit neat face cold hands killing fields cutting changing using distorting hiding natural

berlin fashion.

2009-05-27T22:33:00.006+08:00

[berlin. all images from stilinberlin]

[ -to Qvest]

A: hey.

http://phothoughtgraphy.blogspot.com/2009/05/berlin-fashion.html

have a scroll through, and tell me two words that pop to your head?

B: ugly

becoming ornaments,
the dirty and despised never found more voice
than on chosen garments of men.

what's it to me.

2009-05-04T22:49:00.007+08:00

[ .NY Times ]

(terrorism that's personal: a woman whose ex-husband threw acid on her face after she'd divorced him. he was not caught; she is not unique in this. a piece by nicholas d. kristoff. short, unburdened by opinion, it was a narrative stuck to my mind like a damp feather caught in a weave.)

i saw her, and then him. or perhaps more accurately, i saw this picture. it seemed one of disturbing confrontation, the kind in which you squirm not out of aggressive defense, but because you feel complicit, responsible.

i felt uncertain. here is a woman, scarred. and my righteous self calls armies to the unjust lines, bounding this woman, her son, and others like them. trample the hurtful, and jail the hateful! protect the weak, and return law to law! but for herself, do i dare conjure too many ideas about her being? she is the wronged, the victim, the ever-marked.

how dare my compassion be muddied with my ivoried ideals.

i do not know her, or her life. i do care to know, but what is it to me?

what's it to you?

a man is drinking at a lonesome bar
his bruised knuckles are primed for more alcohol
his wife is at home, trembling, flipping through the phone book
his children lie in bed, fighting their nightmares

a phone rings at an attourney's office
his specialties are domestic abuse and divorce
his secretary is taking down notes for him
his daughter lies about homework and sleepovers

a foetus is growing in her abdomen
his father's favourite pastime is pornography
his mother, the attourney's daughter, is walking to an abortion clinic
his abortionist-to-be goes to church sometimes

a pastor is preaching about the meaning of life
his parishioners think the answer is meaningless
his cousin is staring at the water below the bridge
his brother, the attourney, is crying in his office

a soldier adjusts his rifle strap in Iran
his sergeant has just shot a bomb-strapped child
his sister, the secretary, is judging the wife-beater
his professor spends his saturdays sleeping with the attourney

a drug-pusher flicks his cigarette butt into the trash
his mortgage and debts forced him into the trade
his girlfriend, the abortionist, has liver cancer
his uncle, the soldier, hates all Muslims

a politician is calling the fire brigade
his home was set alight by the cigarette butt
his aunt is a discreet elections officer
his grandson is about to be aborted

the man drinking at the lonesome bar gets a call
his in-charge wants him to get into his fire rescue gear
his inebriated driving will run over the drug-pusher
his accident will be the topic for tonight's tabloid

a society is going through its motions
what's it to you?

- sineprole.blogspot.com

for those who cant do, at least teach well.

2009-05-04T22:32:00.007+08:00

[ .lee hae seong ]
the only pic of my elusive student.

today, a kid commented this other kid in the passage was probably wasting too much time 'wrapped in her own thoughts, daydreaming'.

"that's not good right? to daydream only"
"mm. to do things without thinking is not good either right? the best is to think well, and then do."
"yes. you're right."

it might have been tough if he'd asked, "like, how?"

.

id started many, if most only in mind,
a thousand teeming ghosts,
- screaming truthward -

i became weary,
found blind comfort in
daily loves and solo hopes.

still, they were.
never quite raised by my hand.
and i, still am.
seeing nothing beyond.

depends on what youre blind towards

2009-04-23T22:27:00.005+08:00

[ ICZ. the blind ]

[ .circular from The Substation ]

...how often do you get images and talks from the Institute of Critical Zoologists ?

i think theirs is a worthy mission, a timely institute.

not only crucial to the conservation of wildlife, but especially pertinent to our -humankind's- perception of the land we share, lest we become an dominant class of the plundering blind beyond our own kind.

that is to me a greater injustice.

how humans view animals
Urban societies live in relative isolation from animals
our demand and gaze upon them have grown significantly
relationship between animals and humans has reached an appalling state

...We seek to develop a Critical Zoological Gaze that pursues creative, interdisciplinary research that includes perspectives typically ignored by animal studies, such as aesthetics; and to advance unconventional, even radical, means of understanding human and animal relations. The institute also discourages anthropomorphism in the appreciation and understanding of zoology

good intentions.

2009-04-09T18:47:00.005+08:00

[ (unknown). Matsuo Bashō]

except sometimes the owner of the begging bowl would rather you take your frigging flowers away, and not take up space in what was meant for rice.

and often, other people have a committed interest in your own begging bowl, and wish you'd stop frittering away with flowers what was meant for rice.

manmade muse: brian dettmer/ books/sculpture

2009-04-03T00:08:00.006+08:00

[ . by brian dettmer]

amost like an autopsy, he carves into these paper tomes,
revealing and exposing,
but also building into a final cohesive sculpture.

talking about digging into a good book.

[heres a video: the book doesnt really have an obligation or the monopoly that they used to...]

earth day.

2009-03-30T00:07:00.007+08:00

[candle light. ]

sunday contained among its twenty-four divides,
singapore's first earth hour.

given that the very dismal, very practical, (and put together, very singaporean) comments by the 'average person on the street' are not at all warm to "switching off" (for what!?), i wasnt expecting the eternal lights of singapore go half black. but im pleased that my home was among the darkened ones, and the large french restaurant i happened to be dining at also dimmed (well, the cooks needed to cook) its (many) lights. the few tables of us who were sitting in the restaurant at the quieter corner of clarke quay had ourselves draped in a very dreamy, disquieting half-light.

with our little pocket taking earth hour ("i'm sorry ah, but we'll be turning off our lights for earth hour at 830pm soon, i did say that right, right? earth hour." says very casual mina-like waitress) seriously, outside seemed preposterously dazzling.

it is primarily symbolic. like valentines day, a small, sentimental bit that isn't carried on, let alone fully actualised, much of the rest of the year, doesn't matter much, even if the symbolised meaning is potent enough. we live in the physical world, and that is often where wars and loves are played out and judged.

still.. symbolism stands strong because it can make aware, persuade, unite.

and. who can begrudge the small gesture when real changes are out of the question?

grace cathedral hill: are you feeling better now

2009-03-21T23:23:00.004+08:00

[grace cathedral. san francisco]

[acrylic on wood by bruce docker. ]

many years ago, at least relatively so in my current lifetime, a kindred spirit in the world of art and music, an at times murky, almost always sidelined world, shared a song by the decemberists.

while explanations made now for then are usually imagined and hardly ever true, i suppose i was then too sprightly and energetic with my tastes in indie. used to quick turns and complex riffs, i couldnt settle down long enough to let the melody seep in, or put word and word together to uncover picturesque dreams and morphous meanings.

in other words, i didnt stand still enough for this song; anything that didnt leap out at me was forgotten, or worse, never seen or heard.

one must love the speedy informational transactions of the internet then. for it was on its radio that i heard it again. this time, a curious thing: the very first strains dug deep. spiritual-physicists would make some comment on resonating frequencies or something.. but yes. the strains seemed the tumult in my sluggish self, and the timbre the low echo my dragging feet made. the quiet observing voice was the corner i wanted to retreat into, and let the world's going ons, made artful through a steadied frame, be my muse and my preacher.

grace cathedral hill,
all wrapped in bones of
setting sun,
all dust and stone and moribund.
i paid twenty five cents
to light a little white candle
for a new year's day

i sat and watched it burn away
then turned and weaveed through slow decay
we were both a little hungry
so we went to get a hotdog

down the hyde st. pier
the light was slight and disappeared
the air, it stunk of fish and beer

we heard a superman trumpet play the
national trumpet
and the world be
long for you
but it'll never belong to you

but on a motorbike,
when all the city lights
blind your eyes tonight
are you feeling better now?
are you feeling better now
are you feeling better now.

someway to greet the year
your eyes all bright and brimmed with tears
the pilgrims, pills and tourists here all sing
fifty three bucks to buy a brand new halo

sweet on a green eyed girl
all fiery irish, clip and curl
all brine and piss and vinegar
i paid a twenty cents to
light a little white candle

and the world may be long for you
but the world

but-

the images were lightly intoxicating.

but. away from internalities, to a place we can walk and feel concrete on foot: what is the place that this song revolves around? what is the space that the song, in its melodies and silences, seem to echo?

more-stalgia.

2009-02-18T17:16:00.004+08:00

[this is a special post. it is also a rebellious post, because i'd conjured this blog as a pedantic project to understand and explore beyond the initial image (which is sposed to be nicely framed header). the initial image here is only in my head. try to imagine with me.]

- exploring nostalgia -

RC: What are some artefacts or aspects of your childhood days that you feel nostalgic for and why? (it could be some food that you used to eat as a child but no longer do, games, personal items...)

bring proper playgrounds back!!! i want real swings that actually can swing; i want high tall metal slides. i want scary see-saws that do not have the pathetic small axis of pivot that today's short springy stump pass off as see-saws. i want sand.

playgrounds built after 2000 (?) are pathetic. the plastic sponge mat they use stink in the heat. its painful to fall on. the sets are creepy cupcake versions: small, and completely unfun, totally unthrilling.

when i was younger, i'd visit the old-school playground at my aunts place. it (still) has an amazing network of monkey-bar-things. i could actually admire my cousin who'd negotiate it, and wonder about the day when i'd be big(ger) and brave(r) to monkey my way up so high. when he banged his head against a bar, the entire structure 'khlonngged'. it also had two slides - the taller was properly seven metres up; if your shorts slide up, youd have butt burn sliding down. it had two swings, on monster chains that my 20year old cousin could sit on without me fearing it would break. i'd scream at my cousin cos he'd see-saw me too high, too rough.

my own neighbourhood playground had a huge chain bridge, which i'd fallen off while clambering along the outside. my tailbone hurt like shite, but ive yet to hear stories of people who'd died while on those playgrounds. it was torn down during some en-bloc upgrading thing.

even better, i actually sweated and panted playing all those things. seriously, today's playgrounds are more coloured up, but are reduced to a third of the size, and even less of the fun. everything's scaled down, sanitised, and made 'more manageable'. they're like some little artist's daydream of multi-coloured la la land, who'd forgotten that kids like, and need, proper play, not prissy play. growing bones, you know?

i also liked those pigs-in-a-basket biscuits. they used to be only 40 cents each. and found everywhere.

[ . from http://eatzybitzy.blogspot.com ]
.. except, those are the more fancily packaged ones. they actually look like this:

[ zhu zai bing. from lemonshortbread ]

underdogs.

2009-02-17T11:35:00.008+08:00

[ . from Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women]

the group moniker is highly clever. i could already imagine the trouble my friends would have if i joined it. what hypocrisy, claiming to be a pub-goer. but i thought the pink chaddi (basically, underpants) was a brilliant fling in the face(s) of the sri ram sena.

plus, enemy credentials cant be too disputable for lack of fulfilling one adjective. if one is loose and forward, then she (men, you understand this only applies to the fairer and weaker sex) most probably visits pubs, the bastions of dank sinfulness. the converse is more true, for 'to do' or 'participate' is stronger than merely 'to think' or 'be so'. if one is found in a pub, whether or not that place actually meets the criteria for being a propah pub, then she is most definitely very loose and so forward she'll without a doubt fall flat on her face sometime later in life (bringing down the entire name of her family and forebears) unless we rein her in and slap her down.

hitting nightspots, wearing flatteringly clothes (ironic how the tighter your attire, the looser you're sposed to be) and speaking a lil too loud, too much is probably a triple heart attack to a real sri ram-er. i imagine they'd be ready to raze g-strings off if they see such 'happening, loose and forward' women on a mass scale, in stranger permutations. i'd like an interview with one of them. i'd like to fly one of them over. or fly with them to hollywood-la-la-land (where i spose most degrading cultures originate). of course, to get on his (could there be 'hers' in the sri ram sena?) good side, i'd be wearing my best loosest sari (to show how uptight i am).

Pramod Mutalik, the SRS leader, said at the time that his followers were “custodians of Indian culture” who had prevented the women at the pub from going astray. He has vowed to force unmarried couples found together on Valentine’s Day to either get married or to tie rakhis – string bracelets – on their wrists signifying that they are brother and sister.

Other officials have voiced support for the idea that is “unIndian” for women to visit pubs – or even to hold hands with men in public. “We definitely condemn the incident where women were attacked but the pub culture must stop,” Anbumani Ramadoss, the Health Minister, said last month.

back to the pants. i wonder how many piles of these pink chaddis have winged (eheh, wing) their way to Pramod Muthalik. Does he seethe in anger at the pink hordes? And given that he finds it distasteful and very "unindian" for (indian?) women to traipse around town, would he be turned on or off by the sight of so many female intimates?

Also, does he have facebook? His PR assistant should hook him up, and have him read the wall posts in the group. This would allow him a better view of the challenges he faces in reel in loose women and unmarried couples on valentines day, even if only in Karnataka.

Sidenote. If Paris Hilton turned Indian, can you imagine how many millions the global (because you know, one individual here does affect the economy there) economy would lose if she weren't allowed to booze and shop her way through many nights and days. "It's really scary about the economy right now. So the way I'm playing my part in helping is doing a lot of shopping wherever I go."

perfect valentine.

2009-02-16T11:52:00.004+08:00

[ . from homesweethomewrecker ]

now. throw in some sexy, and that's the perfect valentine day after day, year after year.

for the manlier gender, of course.

eclipsed.

2009-02-02T14:16:00.005+08:00

[philipines. manila bay. from the telegraph ]

a partial solar eclipse gave a setting crescent on 30th january.

that's a red anyone can respect.

business as usual.

2009-01-30T13:43:00.004+08:00

[www.nytimes.com ]
alexis mabille

christian lacroix

givenchy

dior

... asked if the economy was having an effect on the spring c outure seas on, karl lagerfeld of chanel said, “only on the conversation.”

yea, chanel laid off 200 temp staff (only one percent of its 16,000 workforce, but many families) and there're fewer shows (meaning small-fry designers feel the pinch more), and the goodie bags won't be so stuffed.

but i was still slightly more interested in the clothes, and the dreams and aspirations (inspirations?) they still promise to hold.

cos while the real value of haute couture seems hard to grasp (what? these long trains and multiple pearls and diamonds during times of hunger and crisis?!), it still represents the old trades of the various needle crafts, at its exquisite and refined best.

that is the real value of haute couture, not it's marketing value to sell, and endorse, other odds and ends of commercial luxury.

like, as says this comment from the NY Mag:
...Perhaps New York's Fashion Weeks can mature, leave the models gone wild atmosphere for a world of elegance & class, leave behind the world where fashion editors elbow each other to get to their seats.

chanel (more)

barack obama - walla

2009-01-29T17:59:00.007+08:00

(ok. fluke. iconic face of America)

Washington...;

to even Lincoln.

The Obama morphs and yields, taking on many shapes and forms. This allows him to reach wider than most, and take root in the deepest hearts of people. It is easier to rule by love, though a tricky thing to attain.

More than plans and practical know-how, he elevated us (both the U.S. and international us, beamed through the internets) to ideas and aspirations. I spose he deserves the many metamorphoses the public is trying to place him in, to make sense of his never-seen-before inspirations.

[first dance at the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball in Washington. www.guardian.co.uk]

another planet signals another cycle.

2009-01-26T17:50:00.003+08:00

i've come to like chinese new year more and more. while the 'literal' new year as it seems to have come to be is more about getting-out, partying and painting anything red with your reds, the traditional chinese new year has always been about the return of the flock, remembering communal ideals and just catchin' up, catchin' up.

and the food: instead of greasy fries, alcohol and cake, there's far more creative carbo-laden fare (this year's winners are kueh bangkit and pineapple tarts) and pokka drinks, and reunion dinners.

while the cusp between dec 31st and jan 1st leaves one typically spent and all worn down, the more chinese new year is about collection: renewing memories, remembering one's place in the family (regardless of whether you bring that back home), trading stories (and actually remembering them), and angbaos.

you might be tired at the end of the house-hopping, but the unmarrieds at least will not be broke. in fact, i do believe this new year is more conducive for resolution making, and cementing. all the enforced sitting down, rubbing shoulders with slighter unfamiliars, makes for some subtle mental breakthroughs.

even if it's just going home and know, more firmly than before, your path ahead for the new year is the one you choose, for better for worse. or deciding that kids are just little adults set loose (ie. not cute angels).

it's the penultimate family occasion for many families. for those with a complex pull-push relationship with theirs, chinese new year is quite usually an eye-opener.

speaking of eye-openers, i love how alecia neo tries to illuminate by taking her viewer along the process, riding the waves, stumbling through, hopefully coming out to see clearer.

here's my favourite picture of a few she entered in a photography competition:

http://www.core77.com/braunprize2009/list.php?img=497b4f702e4bc#

toddering paths

2009-01-21T23:42:00.005+08:00

[cameron highlands. malaysia]

not knowing is fine sometimes, especially when it's simply a crisis, a period, a hiatus, whatever we term it.

not lost, - no- but certainly no longer flag-waving and blustering with epithets.

clear the tumbleweeds, and air the mothballs, go with the flow, and surely you'll collect some solid truths by the end of the walk. i think.

and let down, let loose, the stuff you've been holding on so tight.

i've been slow to blog, if only to take a meandering walk and look and observe and take in. all out of decision making and opinion forcing. excuse the haphazardness of posts, and in posts.

time for a walk.

stuff
noun
1.	the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object; "coal is a hard black material"; "wheat is the stuff they use to make bread" [syn: material]
2.	miscellaneous unspecified objects; "the trunk was full of stuff"
3.	informal terms for personal possessions; "did you take all your clobber?"
4.	senseless talk; "don't give me that stuff"
5.	unspecified qualities required to do or be something; "the stuff of heros"; "you don't have the stuff to be a United States Marine"
6.	information in some unspecified form; "it was stuff I had heard before"; "there's good stuff in that book"
7.	a critically important or characteristic component; "suspense is the very stuff of narrative"
verb
1.	cram into a cavity; "The child stuffed candy into his pockets"
2.	press or force; "Stuff money into an envelope"; "She thrust the letter into his hand" [syn: thrust]
3.	obstruct; "My nose is all stuffed"; "Her arteries are blocked"
4.	overeat or eat immodestly; make a pig of oneself; "She stuffed herself at the dinner"; "The kids binged on ice cream" [syn: gorge]
5.	treat with grease, fill, and prepare for mounting; "stuff a bearskin"
6.	fill tightly with a material; "stuff a pillow with feathers"
7.	fill with a stuffing while cooking; "Have you stuffed the turkey yet?" [syn: farce]

WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.

or, explained, described and explored charmingly by george carlin:

stuff
(george carlin)

closer.

2009-01-12T22:02:00.005+08:00

[malaysia. cameron highlands]

god is in the details,
gustave flaubert (1821-80)
(and perhaps, michelangelo, the architect ludwig mies van der rohe, and the art historian aby warburg.)

some major fishing.

2009-01-12T21:53:00.006+08:00

[malaysia. genting highlands]

a small pond, alive with
schools and schools of fish.

this is what a child of say, seven years, will see
walking by a railing (almost) completely covered with balloons,
if he peeks through them.

winter escape.

2009-01-10T03:58:00.004+08:00

[. from landscape ]

thats a suitably bleak picture. and many will find it romantic and lush, full of insinuated meanings and vague, blurry, triple-layered nuances.

sometimes you wake up feeling like that picture; a sharp, uncoloured awareness of yourself, and all around you. and of course, itll never feel abundant or happy or gay. you'll realise you are you, and there wasn't much to you. and that it was your own unintended fault.

or you'll feel coldly alone. except, as those who've lived homeless for long become 'used to', you'll see again the bonds that tie us all. there's the obligations and the indebtedness; the love and familiar.

there's those you held above change, above time, above physical movements and friction. those are the ones you start to wonder about in the wintry time of your soul. you muse if you let open your hand just a little, will it lift and be away, gone, to its own cadence and purpose, and/or lured away by the persistant sweets of other trains.

another feature of this wintry awakening is the incredible distance. things once held near seem far, or missing. or maybe, for the sake of longterm sanity, discovered unreal or misconceived. all directions from you, you see the lapses.

in judgement and in perception, you realise perhaps you have not failed, but oh what a distance to make up for.

of course. the landscape around you is not empty. it shouldn't be, for you are never alone in your context, but inevitably tangled in engagements, in relationships - all markers of your position in time and space. ...to see not even the physical blots is a whiteout of the soul. you're blind and dead for a time, a worse kind of winter, for you lose even perspective of your perspective.

these winter times are when the winds around me howl the greatest, and my senses demanded to be painfully acute.

fly.

2009-01-06T00:30:00.002+08:00

[genting highlands. malaysia]

to the new year,
spinner:
of dreams and renewed energy,
of hope and exuberance.

round and again.

the tree and the building.

2008-12-22T22:53:00.002+08:00

[singapore. tampines, construction site]

is all belief

2008-12-22T22:48:00.005+08:00

[singapore. ]

a girl among christmas decorations set up on a square outside a mall.

now tell me, is all belief make-believe?

santa or god, the love of your life or your coming promotion. tell me, how are they different?

but we must always make-believe, to have in our lives, as our lives, a little more than bricks and mortar, toothbrushes and suits.

through the square, past the wall, across the threshold, into the next

2008-12-22T22:28:00.005+08:00

[ singapore. boon lay food court]

was sitting there waiting for the other to return to the table, all around was chatter, noise, consumption, motion. a convenient outpost set in a blank wall, half bodies moving, making, giving, in a continuous captivating production. one in uniform would flit to the post, picking up and taking away, a well-practiced manoevre, a confident assignment. warm sustenance appears, swooped up for its destination, nameless, one of many.

so was the inside, one of many. concentrate. and each was an individual amongst many. hands, hips, waists moved to different beats, but all keeping within the same rhythm- making, moving, giving.

and the uniformed making their rounds.

the other returned, and those not to be seen receded.

sustenance magically appears. and all that mattered, and very lovely indeed, was one's chatter, noise, consumption, motion.

a heads up.

2008-11-25T22:36:00.000+08:00

[masjid mosque. near bussorah street, haji lane. singapore.]

impending.

quickly now, why the grouch can be loved.

2008-11-21T13:09:00.001+08:00

[ jim davis]
this is not a photo, but well, garfield is nice to look at, and gives plenty of food for thought.

wiki fact: jim davis grew up on a farm with mother anna, father james william, and 25 cats. interestingly, his first wife carolyn was allergic to cats.

i find most people take on any singular aspect of garfield in the most extreme sense:

indulgently selfish
laconic in the laziest sense
sassy to the point of rudeness
grouchy
completely unhealthy
manipulative

but garfield doesnt have an evil bone in his body; his faults stem from extreme epicureanism, a flow-with-the-languid-river philosophy, emotional honesty, joy in pleasure pursuits taken a lil too far. that he is nice and lovable means you cant hate him much.

lovely cat.

in fashion.

2008-11-18T12:37:00.003+08:00

[all photos by tim walker. from foto_decadent ]
taking,
you are what you dress
how you dress
you dress what you need

a many layered haunting,
until each bleeds into the other,
smearing a broad thick memory of things past.

these photos by tim walker are breathtakingly beautiful and macabre in the same sweep.

and is not the depths of life the same, in the twists and tumults of emotions, irony of situations, imaginings and dreams, whether in paranoia or grandiose plans.

if the clothes, expressions,
speech, movements,
colours, light
of our physical surroundings turn to mirror our very
thoughts and heart,
old pains and future fears,
i do think earth would turn into a very macabre clownish hell.

will we sympathise with each other more then, having seen through and all.

or, perhaps, it is precisely why we need neat clothes, and careful makeup,
ettiquette and a norm,
clean walkways and obligatory handshakes-

- the japanese let it hang in akhihabara and shinjuku's kabuki-chou. their kinks are world-class. at work and at home, along the streets and in restaurants, they're the sanest, most polite-

so we are sick, daily players in the macabre,
but what curious colours they may make when we manage them well.

joe.

2008-11-11T12:02:00.005+08:00

or more formally, joseph stalin jughashvili.

[.]

"man of the year" for 1942, said a january 1943 edition of Time magazine in the U.S,

"The year 1942 was a year of blood and strength. The man whose name means steel in Russian, whose few words of English include the American expression 'tough guy' was the man of 1942... Stalin's methods were tough, but they paid off."

[film director roland emmerich's london home.]
...featuring a mural of Mao, and a sofa cushion with Stalin's face

"The reality was that the Soviet Union was a vital ally and the West needed to keep the Red Army fighting the Germans.

The trouble is that the legacy of these "expedient lies" has still not entirely left us. Which is why I hope people will come to realise just how appalling Stalin was, and students might think twice before hanging pictures of Stalin on their walls. "
- reporter Lawrence Rees

[. ]
with daughter Svetlana, 1935

joseph stalin.
comments::

This is something I have wondered about for years. I have a German mother, born 1927 and who therefore went through the Nazi education/propaganda machine and was in the BMD (girls' equivalent of the Hitler Youth). I can't talk about my "Nazi mum" in public, even though her involvement was way beyond her childhood & teenage control. Compare with my grandfather - active communist all his adult life. Stalin was his hero even when the pogroms were well known and the world saw the brutality of the suppression of the Hungarian uprising & policing of the Berlin Wall. However, it is OK to talk about my Commie grandfather, as Stalin and the whole brutal Soviet regime are considered "possibly wrong but definitely romantic" in polite society.
Ruth, London

...One thing is true about all these men, Guevara, Hitler, Stalin, Mao etc - they are all (for better or worse, mainly worse) iconic and were giants in their time in history.
Chris Burnell, Putney, London

I've always found it strange how Communist dictators and terrorists are viewed in a different light to their fascist counterparts. ...How is a mass-murderer of one political ilk any different than another? Stalin and Mao should be morally repugnant to any right-thinking person.
Owen Gibbs, Chesterfield

... murderous butcher.
Andrew V, Canada

We seem to have a blind spot where Stalin, History's greatest mass murderer is concerned. Our education system perpetuates this. History now is taught on the basis of The Tudors followed by the Nazis. Under the National Curriculum quite some time is rightly spent learning about the Holocaust. However no comparison is made with the Soviet camps, where extermination took place. More were murdered by the Soviet regime than under the shorter lived Nazi regime. ... As a parting comment should we not consider why didn't many of the academics who had either supported the Soviet Union or "made allowances", not admit they got it wrong when Communism finally collapsed?
Richard, London

Stalin had a very keen mind and a sense of humour absent in Hitler and Mussolini. His interview with H. G. Well is worth reading.
Steve Abrams, London

2008-11-07T11:03:00.000+08:00

[baquba, diyala province. baghdad]
under a US soldier's hat and rifles

[kamenica. bosnia]
along with at least 100 full body remains and over 1,000 partial remains of bosnian muslims killed by the bosnian serb army in 1995.

[kibati. congo]
in an improvised refugee camp, away from fighting between rebels and the congolese army.

[philadelphia. usa]
before presidency.

[400 million light years away. cetus]
with another galaxy, and named arp 147

do you hear me, talking to you.

2008-10-28T23:11:00.001+08:00

occasionally, the inverse occurs, and mere words string together to invoke disparate thoughts, melding together and calling forth ideas, then teasing out the past -or suggesting a future, finally tumbling into a blossom of images.

a reverse photo-thought like that seems all the more potent, a final birth from vague concepts to concrete reality,

except that that reality only exists in a poignant 2D etch.

and invariably almost, thoughts of individuals, disparate through time and space, conjure up ideas of the bonds among, and in between.

[germany. berlin]
and a favourite appears again. an unassuming stranger who whips out those love-glasses at the last moment, and rather gleefully agrees to having his picture taken.

interesting ad in the back ground.

[germany. berlin]

/ lucky I'm in love with my best friend
/ lucky to have been where I have been

[thailand. nongkhai]
looking across to laos, and people since then.

/ lucky we're in love every way

/ lucky to have stayed where we have stayed
/ lucky to be coming home someday
-jason mraz

fight with faith (continued).

2008-10-22T22:03:00.000+08:00

[thailand. chiang mai]

what happen when faith turns into a fallible object;
the all-knowing one becomes a scrap of a bygone moment.

or, what happens when it leaves you,
an apparent turn of favour,
an incomprehensible breakdown, abandonment, leaving you bereft.

What happens, whether dumper or dumpee, when we lose faith?

Is
(man + faith) > (man - faith) ?

then,
man - faith = ?

and even more that,
faith = hope + ?
faith -> man?

Assuming,
faith > man

Is it?
faith > man ?
....(?)... ~> faith

says cultural historian Paul S Boyer, author of When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture:

"It is deeply appealing at a psychological level because the idea of meaninglessness is deeply threatening. Human societies have always tried to create some kind of framework of meaning to give history and our own personal lives some kind of significance."

ross.

2008-10-19T00:26:00.000+08:00

[ . all photos from Striderv ]

striderv:
"It was not identified but I would guess it was in the Montreal Quebec area where Ross grew up and sometime during, or just after, the war years."

ross mcnee:

the ago is an interesting place;
wondering; caught up in; endlessly seductive; then left spinning off in other concocted directions; perhaps never properly addressed-

lace of leaves.

2008-10-18T23:44:00.000+08:00

[singapore. chinese gardens]

every once in a while comes the thought, we tend to forget- to look up, as do we neglect to shift, even if just for a breath of fresh air, the perspectives we hold, which form entrenched sediments over a lifetime.

almost by chance i turned upwards.

and then tried to frame off the rest of the mundane earthly world, to peel former associations and understandings, to take away taken-for-grantedness. leaves of a tree obscuring sky became dark patterns across a blue-white patch. and it seems i could appreciate them anew.

... and by the way, for skies further than current latitudes and longitudes,

[ . from http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/ ]

october's cloud is the contrail. man-made, but still a cloud.

before this was the no-idea-how-or-why-it-is-formed clouds,
...............the mamma;

retro > brotherhood

2008-10-14T21:52:00.005+08:00

10+ 1 photos from ago:

these spoke of camaderie,
joy, certainty, bonds;
of comradeship,
companionship.

and really, at the risk of sounding overwrought-
oh! to have a shoulder to put an arm around!

[ . uploaded by Striderv]

[ .by VARONES!]

[ .by aimeedars]

[ .by signs and wonders]

and then this, spoke loudest of all.
they stand apart, fists clasped protectively in front.
another behind, languid.
who were they to each other before fate threw both into a path of combat.

(brothers.)

[. uploaded by Striderv ]

captioned: "Ross and his Brother in Uniform"

many, many

2008-10-10T00:35:00.003+08:00

[ china, wulian, east shandong province. -the bbc]

gone past ten trillion debt dollars-

US debt clock runs out of digits

For the time being, the Times Square counter's electronic dollar sign has been replaced with the extra digit required.

... debt shade of green.

the ultimate sandman.

2008-10-08T23:15:00.000+08:00

[ nevada. all images from. getwonder.com ]

one man.
one dry lake bed.
8 days of walking,
100miles.

no measuring aids.

....the world's largest freehand drawing.

[ nevada. all images from. getwonder.com ]

130,000 ft above, the last photo in july 2008 shows the artist, jim denevan, as a mere speck. circumvented by his own work, lost in the expanse of nature.

so.. if the introduction sounds a lil epic, that's because this really is!

and the question is, why.

The drawing was transient, as all of Jim's work is: "It was completely erased in a rainstorm the next week... It felt strange to work so hard and not see tide come in. But rains did come which is sort of the same thing."

... in transforming all around him, in his labours and toils, and exertions upon the internal, man only transforms himself. all is washed away by the tide, and all remains is within himself.

as without, so within.

2008-10-07T12:22:00.005+08:00

[Malling Hansen's Writing Ball c.1870. from officemuseum.com ]

“You are right,” Nietzsche replied, “our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.”

[cut] Is Google Making Us Stupid?
// [paste]

.. Sometime in 1882, Friedrich Nietzsche bought a typewriter—a Malling-Hansen Writing Ball, to be precise. His vision was failing, and keeping his eyes focused on a page had become exhausting and painful, often bringing on crushing headaches. He had been forced to curtail his writing, and he feared that he would soon have to give it up. The typewriter rescued him, at least for a time. Once he had mastered touch-typing, he was able to write with his eyes closed, using only the tips of his fingers. Words could once again flow from his mind to the page.

One of Nietzsche’s friends, a composer, noticed a change in the style of his writing. His already terse prose had become even tighter, more telegraphic. “Perhaps you will through this instrument even take to a new idiom,” the friend wrote in a letter, noting that, in his own work, his “‘thoughts’ in music and language often depend on the quality of pen and paper.”

Nietzsche’s prose “changed from arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from rhetoric to telegram style.”

The human brain is almost infinitely malleable.
Nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones. “The brain,” according to Olds, “has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions.”

As we use what the sociologist Daniel Bell has called our “intellectual technologies”—the tools that extend our mental rather than our physical capacities—we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies.

When the mechanical clock arrived, people began thinking of their brains as operating “like clockwork.” Today, in the age of software, we have come to think of them as operating “like computers.” But the changes, neuroscience tells us, go much deeper than metaphor. Thanks to our brain’s plasticity, the adaptation occurs also at a biological level.

for all that’s been written about the Net, there’s been little consideration of how, exactly, it’s reprogramming us. The Net’s intellectual ethic remains obscure.

As we are drained of our “inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance,” Foreman concluded, we risk turning into " 'pancake people'—spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button.”

manmade: book=art

2008-09-28T00:10:00.000+08:00

the last post (also the first one) on a manmade muse was quite a while ago, when the paper shoes by violise lunn completed inverted function into something all aesthetic.

my own bias seems to be apparent by even the second selection on an MMM.. but i believe this is a muse on so many levels, it cant be ignored. so, more paper.

[ from www.jacquelinerushlee.com ]

sushi rolls.

like a clean cross-section of the swirl of ideas, stories, lives encased in those books.

[ from www.jacquelinerushlee.com ]

weight.

the sheer enormity of worlds a book can hold. surreal to see the pages blank, washed clean of the ideas it'd held, scraped and shriven to a paper mass.

[ from www.jacquelinerushlee.com ]

if you crush a bubble and release its ideas and intangible forms, leaving its shells behind, where do the dreams go. what else but to gather and cradle the brittle remains?

worship. [OR, rule.]

2008-09-26T00:30:00.000+08:00

[thailand. bangkok]

24:52
i have been spending the whole day in the lib today from 10-10 thinking abt 'why do ppl have religion, why do ppl need religion, wads the sociology in it, how to get out of the psychological path'
i feel kind of disgusted now
insane

12:25
wow.
that sounds great.
i spent 10-10 thinking y my bosses treat pp like crap, dont do anything n yet still hv money, power and status.

27:42
oh u learnt tt before!
think marx and capitalism (:

the quiet carriage
12:28
ahaha!

cheer: (: [islam; religiosity; faith and experience]
12:31
haha

world.

2008-09-08T21:28:00.000+08:00

[from alicia bock's bloom, grow, love]

from the solid comfort of earth,
fragrant brown strands,
then lured into the static of the living,
of us and you and them,
and they, and me,
but then back out again,
into the roaring infinite,
of blue, and blue.

...interesting how, if we can look away from the world of people, we see nature (we see the world).

how different. ?.

its space knows no boundaries
and imposes none on you.
there in it:
i may regain my own breath, allow
my self again.

lashed.

2008-09-04T22:25:00.001+08:00

[by sebastian faena. found on foto_decadent]

many ways we've formed relations with a bigger-than-us, an above-us-all,
but in them all, through most times,
if not usually,
we seek to rever and uphold,
to share a private communion,
for its fever to sweep away our ill-understandings,
to bleed and surrender our selves to its greater will, knowing it is Good.

..obviously, mixing spiritual religion and hard nudeness like this will invite both the Artsy Applause and the Sacred Disapprovals.. take it as a physical manifestation of our complex spiritual, sometimes emotion-drenched, yearnings

hunger
desperation
ego
fear
love
primality

and you'll find yourself, perhaps, actually painted in a prettier version in the pictures above.

Love and Truth, show me your way.

2008-09-04T21:30:00.000+08:00

[ .found in back in skinnyjeans]

are they necessarily in different directions?

.. excuse me while i stand at the crossroads of answering that.

search.

2008-08-21T21:56:00.003+08:00

with these:

+ a newfound respect for temple architecture
+ intense fascination with the beliefs these buildings were funded on
+ immense wonder at (usually a temple's) time-drenched history
+ quiet, tremulous awe, and a kind of infatuation, for the people living what seems to be a truly alternative existence
+ a single recommendation to visit a temple poetically named "field of flowers", by sombut (whose own name means something along the lines of 'quiet mind')

even if without these:

+ enough baht to go spending on transport to-ing and fro-ing
+ a local friend who could show me the inner works, of belief, of thai culture, of a monument's past
+ the bit of map to show me the way
+ assurance that i would find what i was urgently hoping, praying to see and have

plus sunblock, the crazed certainty wrought by the former was enough for me to brave these:

+ 2hour (time to get lost) walk west of the old city in the sun (a 330pm sun in thailand is like a noonburn, baby, burn)
+ 1.5hour walk back in a drizzle
+ half a map (the wrong half)
+ lingering around the compounds of this 14thC temple, wanting to see, hear, feel, more

[wat suan dok. chiangmai]
gates.
closer.. until my entire world is a simple, undistracted focus, framed by you.

the main stupa. a brilliant contrast against the white and grey sky.
it commanded, invited, silently.

[wat suan dok. "city of the dead"]

endless white all around drew me;
there is this eagerness to join with it,
an elevated purity, away and clear at last.

eyes never leaving it,
i climbed over the fence, and entered through the side.
found myself in a white land of past kings and queens,
dead, quiet, and not here.

an average plot seemed a daunting portal.
i looked around at the different sameness,
mind scratching at the other language,
an uncomprehending fool wanting to join
with-

on the outside, i'd waited, for the sun to relent a lil, to recall/refine a purpose. and on the outside, another monk'd paused, and took me through a rather psychedelic ride through yearnings and past pains, humourous musings and, inside. he took me within.

and we sat unfolding our thoughts to each other, a million monkey minds.

a cambodian monk, living and studying in the north of thailand, chattered about the many turns of a life, and hassled with me over the workings of how we (are used to) thinking. formal language faltered, but his hands, glittering eyes, and a face smiling, thinking, musing, made me do all three along with him. i think you would make a good president, chenda, a one-of-a-kind.

the remnants of a past sojourn through thailand exist in embedded memories, photos, scraps of paper, etchy words, and an email:

... but you can think about Mind with me.

Your friend,
Chenda

[all pictures at wat suan dok.
thailand. chiangmai]

looking at fashion.

2008-08-06T22:49:00.000+08:00

[berlin. from stilinberlin.blogspot.com]

nature gives all the ways
to be right,
the laws behind being.
it grows, moves, lives,
according to principles laid before time,
perfected and refined through time.

and man, in being occasionally wrong,
in his missteps and
miscalculations,
tiny tragedies and loud disasters,
reveals how it may be a delightful right,
how there may be a saving kernel,
and that some rules aren't too bad broken.
especially when they were made by men.

a memuse.

2008-07-28T23:33:00.000+08:00

[singapore. malan road]
how does memory work;
what gives rebirth, what causes death.
the inexactitude of love and life,
you just laugh, and smile when you do remember.

"... and a mould. a mould carries the imprint of those once passed- and it reproduces its sentiments from that perfect first copy, according to its needs and wishes. it does not mourn, it simply bears, it simply has. ..."

watch him do the talk

2008-07-23T23:13:00.000+08:00

breaking protocol here. this isnt a photo (clearly), but his face, the strain in his voice, the heat behind his eyes, and the legacy, the memory, of an entire people drumming in the rhythm of his rant, his cry, his statement- it burns a damn clear picture in my mind.

and calls forth a million other images through humanity- each demanding. each demanding we get up, like he has done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3szc53yb7J0
[oscar brown jr. apologize. ..thanks alecia, for bringing this to the fore]

" i apologise for being black,
for all i am
plus for all i lack
please sir, please ma'am, give me some slack

i apologise for being poor
for being sick and tired and so
since i aint slick
dont know the scope
i apologise

i apologise because i bear
resemblance most black people share
thick lips, flat nose and nappy hair
yes i apologise

i apologise for how i look
for all the lows and blows i took
and lord knows i closed the book

i apologise for all i gave
for letting you make me your slave
and going to my early grave
yes i apologise

i apologise for being caught
for being sold, for being bought
for being told i count
for nought

i apologise for all ive done
for all my toil out in the sun
dont wanna spoil your righteous fun
so i apologise

i apologise and curse my kind
for being fooled, for being blind
for being rude and in your bind

i apologise and curse my feet
for being slow
for being late
because i know its me you hate
why not apologise

i apologise and tip my hat
cos you so rich and free and fat
sonofabitch, thats where its at.
and i apologize

oscar brown jr died, aged 78, 29th may, 1995, of natural causes. he founded the The Oscar Brown, Jr. H.I.P. Legacy Foundation to carry on his work.

soul-searching, not for mine, but yours //or are they same-same, even if different?

2008-07-20T00:02:00.004+08:00

[ayuthaya. at a very small wat, no english name posted]
my first pile of bricks i came across. traipsed around the small area, poked my head into one of the few shrines and found an array of shiny statuettes and food offerings. the place seemed well- visited.

later, a pack of wild dogs trundled over. a black one leapt onto the ledge here, and i had to flee.

[outside wat phra si sanphet. ]
fallen offering on the steps leading up to a statue of a past king

[wat ratburana]
plucking time from the stupas.. cleaners sweeping the grounds, pulling out weeds. i wondered what a place can mean to a person, to a collective people.

[wat ratburana.]
quirky find.

[wat thammikarat.]
they were from the past, but very much rooted in the present consciousness of the people... the heavy concentration of wats everywhere also made me question why i was exerting so much time and energy hunting them down. what was i shooting for? i couldnt get past the what, let alone the why.

it paralleled my church-hopping in germany, but this time it was pure fascination. no loneliness, no sadness. this time i felt certain there is something- but i couldn't find anything (about?). for a while all i got were flat opaque images, insect bites and sunburns many times over. and again and again, at the heart of each wat, the glorious gold would just sit there, making me wonder.

[wat thammikarat.]

... all the good and evil in the world we try to explain, and then cope by externalising them in the physical acts we do, and symbols we cherish. sometimes the two get conflated, or completely divorced.

... find myself continually intrigued by the hidden meanings behind concrete events, and none more mystifying more in the sacred realm of rituals and objects in religion. in ayuthaya, the many (did i mention many? about 400 in a lil town of about 90,000) shrines and statues were magnficient and sagely in their age and otherworldliness. time seemed trivial when you see an eternal belief still strong in offerings dotting the most unexpected places; you cross a road and immediately, the humdrum traffic closes behind you and you're transported 400, sometimes 800 years ago.

i touch the old bricks on the left and look to the stream of cars and people on the right, and wonder, really, what lies beneath all this.

many times ive wrestled with the link between physical reality and the morphous meanings under it all. ayuthaya occupies a another special place in my heart because it was to here i first ran screaming out of bangkok, - here, the quiet began to grow. there were (are) no answers, but to see clearly -again- was a kind of rush.

[ ?.]
across the threshold.

[wat ?thammikarat.]
what overlooks us all?

[wat ratburana. ]

[wat mahathat.]
where the buddha's head is embedded in twisted tree roots.

it was magnificent and quiet, receding into the background. id marched through the rain to snap its supposed otherworldly glow at night (illuminated by lamps), but my thoughts and ambitions got worn down by the traffic, and i let myself be sucked back into present time and bustle.

id found it yet another world i could not quite reach.

i don't mean to offend you personally, but do you not belong to the human race that has killed over 100 million members of their own species in the twentieth century alone?

you mean guilt by association?

it is not a question of guilt. but as long as you are run by the egoic mind, you are part of the collective insanity. perhaps you haven't looked very deeply into the human condition in its state of dominance by the egoic mind. open your eyes and see the fear, the depair, the greed, and the violence that are all-pervasive. see the heinous cruelty and suffering on an unimaginable scale that humans have inflicted and continue to inflict on each other as well as on other life forms on the planet. you dont need to condemn. just observe. that is sin. that is insanity. that is unconsciousness. above all, don't forget to observe your own mind. seek out the root of the insanity there.

:: the power of now. eckhart tolle.

[[ all photos taken at ayuthaya, thailand]]

sedimentation.

2008-07-15T21:48:00.002+08:00

dragon carving at the bottom steps.

[both at wat lam duan. nongkhai. thailand]
brilliant gold at the top of the stairs to the roof.

"about three weeks ago, i'd allowed myself to come to a complete standstill at nongkhai, a small town of three parallel roads to the mekong in the northeast of thailand. the people seemed to live at the same languid pace, and i had two days to contemplate the mekong, the sculptures at sala keaw ku, and myself a year after being on the opposite of the river in vientiene, laos.

two days in singapore is a pithy period stretched thin by work, engagements, responsibilities and urban entertainments. but between the afternoon i arrived there and the third evening, the initial restlessness and utter boredom had condensed into ... a still vague, but quiet purpose. external boredom quickly turned to a reflective solitude.

the few days there seemed a dense mini lifetime as i swung between ennui and wonderment, at the little thoughts that bubbled forth and the odd sights i'd come across. just as the heat was relentless (i wont be forgetting a semi-heatstroke at sala keaw ku), activities, then thoughts got pared down. it was like an exfoliation process: i had nothing to do, or see, and didn't seem to be capable of much thought. i was left to face the congruence of physical place and time.

-- the sun seared burns across my neck and the mass of water a continuous linear brown. it was quiet, silent,

and i started remembering the lessons i'd learnt with the project at nongduang; re-mused at how my life has narrowed in some ways, streamlined in others and felt reassured i would surely take something back from what seemed like superficial wanderings across thailand.

ill also remember nongkhai for my first fun roommate (also my first long conversation with another human in thailand), zack from michigan and his hilarious "other half, nick". i didnt expect the easy camadarie. ...its a pity our trips to chiangmai didnt align, and that im only expressing my fondness here."

[back of wat lam duan.]

[wat pho chai.]
squares of coloured lights in the sun.

a girl drying isaan sausages outside a shop.
the town was full of sausages-

another sign proclaiming the proud isaan sausage. ironic pig, that.

[the mekong.]
i sat, fidgeted, then let myself be lulled by it..

[the mekong.]
.. the strip of trees, short buildings and scattered huts across the river became a darkened silhouette- it did seem highly evocative in the sunset, as i met the ghosts of a year ago and withdrew a little from concrete chases.

[[nong khai. thailand]]

traveling, not bumming.

2008-07-07T22:46:00.001+08:00

[pai. thailand. taken and stitched by hc]

midway, my frantic temple touring and trawling thailand's towns ceased and i wondered what was the point. i love traveling- im not supposed to feel ennui like this. id felt like i needed a project, a grand question to fulfil, or at least some heavy weight cleansed. i felt on the periphery of local life, skimming along in my head. plus i wasnt spending much to feed the local economy. i was being the worst kind of tourist- detached, apathetic and not much help or fun.

and id missed you terribly, seeing a whole expanse of time to know you better ebb away with each day you couldnt join me.

then it slowly fell into place; when i stopped chasing meanings and striving for reason, and just let the people i was with and the place i was in touch me. it relaxed into a more primitive interaction, on their terms instead of mine. and things always crystallise toward the end, if you pay open attention. i started taking more focussed pictures, which now form the physical remnants of the trip, waiting to be unfolded.

got on, trusted your back.
the map proved a vague practicality-
the end is unpredictable, multitudinous,
the journey ungrand, until we relaxed-
a rainbow. two.
iridescent lights, it was silent but bold.
and that was a prime sight to be able to have
someone to turn to and smile and be in awed with.
stumbled and fretted along,
but managed rightplace/righttime.
taking measurements in the moments,
we're doing rather beautifully well.

bangkok- "city of life".

2008-07-07T21:55:00.001+08:00

[bangkok. thailand]
i was safely esconsced in an aircon bus, high above on the highway, but the sights of mega billboards and concrete sprawl soon overwhelmed that single sense.

the bus spat me out onto tourist pit at khaosan road, around which i spent an hour walking around looking for accomodation, getting very accustommed to the peculiar smell of bangkok's streets.

it was probably a combination of my own sensitivities to smells and stinks and being beaten down by the bangkok heat and diesel smoke- i was looking for a ride out by the next evening. i fled to the mundane quiet of ayutthaya 2 hours away.

[bangkok. along thanon ratchadamnoen]

[bangkok. intersection of payathai and rama 1; of the connecting skytrains]
where siam square's mega shopping malls meet, sustained by a continuous stream of people from the connecting skytrains, high and clean away from the steady rumble of traffic beneath.

[bangkok.]

[bangkok.]

bangkok pretty much assaulted my senses, and left me reeling and bruised from the massive tangles of people trying to live and development taking place in the dusty shophouses, encroaching buildings, overlays of road systems- everything spilt from everywhere: cars from roads, tuktuks onto curbs, food from carts, babies from mothers' overloaded arms,sewage from gutters, people along roads, smoke roaring out from vehicles.

it's a dynamic city indeed, and though it took a while for me to disengage from my orderly habituations, i came to appreciate the life underneath the dirt and bustle towards the end.

let me roar.

2008-05-30T19:55:00.000+08:00

[san francisco. -taken by john ward]

how marginalized can you get.

an x-ray photo, so to speak.

2008-05-16T22:35:00.000+08:00

[ -taken from BBC News]

this is neither a picture nor a photo, but a visual and clear enough representation of our consuming the earth- our ecological footprints.

the cost of our rate and scale of living, to animals:

marine species ... saw their numbers plummet by 28% in just 10 years, between 1995 and 2005.

Populations of ocean birds have fallen by 30% since the mid 1990s, while land-based populations have dropped by 25%.
(quotes from) bbc news

and for a quick sound bite on how it is rebounding back unto us:

"Reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies are more vulnerable to pests and disease and where water is in irregular or short supply.
"No-one can escape the impact of biodiversity loss because reduced global diversity translates quite clearly into fewer new medicines, greater vulnerability to natural disasters and greater effects from global warming."
James Leape, director general of the WWF

...every mainstream finds its radical alternatives, and No Impact Man is interesting to follow in his attempts to live outside how we have been comfortably taught to live, and are pressured to live. his is an example in not simply leaving as friendly and small an ecological footprint as possible, but one that works with the ways of nature- quippily speaking, it doesnt trample, it treads alongside.

by uncanny coincidence, tis Endangered Species Day today in the U.S., where bush&co have listed the polar bear as endangered.

manmade: these shoes aren't made for walking...

2008-05-12T11:14:00.003+08:00

my pedantic prelude ...

... this blog began as a place to keep photos of real memories, as having existed within the boundaries of my daily world. then the photos begged for more than mere reminiscence; it offered intriguing questions and thoughts, of what actually occurred and what could or might happen. their significance spread beyond a point in time to encompass implications for an entire life.

photos hinted at how much more colourless, and less fascinating, our world would be if confined to our own experiences, with our own eyes- how narrow. how little we would have gotten if we had not paid due attention to the endless sensory stream we have neatly framed in little pocketbooks of picture memory- how shallow, how thin.

... the photos in this blog became a record of the tangible world we live in: visual documentations of people and places around us, among us and within territories unimagined. the pictures taken by me and by others sealed the memory of an ocean's wave or forest lane; it captured social realities in place and time. we spend too many of our days within the four walls of our homes, friends and day-to-days, and too much time in our own heads. time to see more, i thought. time to pay more respect to all around us.

the many pictures of realities everywhere taught me much; humbled me and broadened my vision, challenged my conceptions. then from fellow minds came fantastical imaginings and brilliant ideas. here were not political turmoils or social discontent captured in the news media or a travel writer, but stirrings from within a personal place born into a work of art. these pictures displayed talent, passion, skill, visionaries, humour, labour, intellect- the very best of human qualities. these also humbled me, and uplifted me, encouraged exploration of new depths and heights.

photo-plumbing for this blog has led me to think thus far, we need to break out of our narrow shells to encounter the real, but we also need to rise above comfortable mundanity to feel inspiration and feel ourselves capable of inspiring again.

and so,

... to the official first in the series of manmade muses and musings:

[-all images by Violise Lunn at violiselunn.dk]

when are shoes not shoes?
when they have other functions and purposes.

in this case, danish violise lunn's paper shoes are ethereal and fragile, meant to carry (pardon the pun) you off to a pretty-trimmed fantasy world, not across hard traverses.

or perhaps it is precisely when in a wearing landscape, dotted with obstacles and dour odds, that we need the sustaining oxygen of our ideals and visions- considered as impractical/ inconsequential against the 'real world'- to pull us across. no point hunkering down, sweating blood and tears if you haven't got something, or someone, to give it meaning... i dont quite mean your office boss either.

[-from violiselunn.dk]

your dream needs a backbone;
your efforts need a muse.

see breeze.

2008-05-06T21:07:00.000+08:00

[california, pacifica beach. -from kukyideas]

- the swathes of gray,
insistent thin spills;
you see the architecture of nature
coming together
to create a very pleasing juxtaposition
of harsh and soft,
wet and acrid.
damp salt through your body -
(men only dot the landscape)
-as you turn
letting your vision skim, sail
wide across low, virile waters.
and you hear,
voices, above and around, intermingling
and smell, the sweat
and fervour of pure energy in motion.

(looks like my kind of beach. reminded me of:)

[malaysia. beach at eastern coast of desaru]

right now i'm on the other side of the pane, looking in with awe... that just mere surrender (does not equate) being wholly with Truth, with Freedom, which in it's dangerous moments leads to feeling (seeking) the waves of the ocean closing in around me- no human flesh can resist its insistent pure waves, even if the unfortunate effect is Death. -dec2006

dog and boys.

2008-05-04T11:21:00.000+08:00

[bangkok. -from this flickr set, via here. (thanks hc)]

comments at the flickr site:

grytlappar says: So great!! Yay for those sweet boys!
Sweetsop says: how courageous indeed!

and at neatorama:

Larry Sheldon: And here we see the truth. People tend to be despicable. Kids tend to be creative, compassionate and responsible.

(... hurray for mankind extending a hand to otherkind.)

Ray: And then they ate him.

banksy pokes at the invisible eye.

2008-04-28T19:40:00.001+08:00

[-from the UK Daily Mail]
read the article here.

when we watch one another, do we insure safety or do we enforce conformity;
discipline or fear and suspicion.

this cctv-implanting in every nook and cranny and line, circumventing our entire public lives (and some private areas) reminds me of jeremy bentham's panopticon- his revolutionary idea of a prison where one sees all without being seen.

this created the first true invisible overlord. there is no blue sky above us now, but instead, implicated in our daily lives and then, implicit in our unconscious imaginings, a higher status wielding 'law', 'righteousness' and 'power'.

"... Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power... power should be visible and unverifiable."
- Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 1975.

i look up to see- a flogo?

2008-04-20T18:47:00.001+08:00

[- from livescience.com]

that is a flogo, a floating/flying logo created from "soap-based foams and lighter-than-air gases such as helium" ...finally bringing into reality childhood daydreams of messages and signs in the lofty sky.

talk about taking innovation to new heights- since the sky is one of the last canvases for man to leave (in this case, temporarily- flogos last for about fifteen minutes) his imprints on.

since i have a love-hate relationship with TVMobile installed on our buses (more hate than love, even after all these years), my heart immediately screamed possible platform for propaganda. ads confront us from left to right, and around, in the form of adverts on buses, in buses, at bus stops, on buildings, between radio songs, among the pages of our magazines. it would indeed complete the loop to have messages of influence in our wide open skies too.

a "marry me" or a "peace" sign seems benevolent enough. but imagine a whole series of mcDs emblazoned across your evening sky. or daily soap (literally huh) operas bringing back the literary form, except you get to read a line a day in a kind of fast-food-fiction... bldgblog has a good post exploring some fun implications.

...messages from above?
it'd be a cruel irony if corporations, that lord over us in every way -economic, political and social- do make regular (and heavy) use of this form to advertise. the invisible hand of our capitalistic gods!

in the under-waters.

2008-04-16T22:34:00.001+08:00

id once posted on ethereal beauty, whether manifested in nature itself or conjured through the imaginations of photographers... heres another stream of simply aesthetically pleasing (in quite an ecstatic manner too) photos from zena holloway:

[all images from zenaholloway.com ]

appearances may be superficial, and hence seem... superficial.
but not all that glints are merely articifial coating, good for applause but not too consequential. sometimes you see a narrative which takes seed inside and grows outwards into tangibility; you get enraptured by a scene which forces you to take pause, and consider.

you get inspired, caught up in sheer delight,
elevated above ordinariness and mundanity.
it infuses you, and sets you on a course (necessarily positive?).
it sits there, but it moves worlds.

that, to me, is most utilitarian. and when aesthetics meet utility, it marries existence and purpose at the highest level.

love, in celebration and ceremony.

2008-04-06T23:58:00.000+08:00

[- all images from. snippet and ink]

[julie and kaori's wedding day. - all images from. snippet and ink]

when one can
-and is able to-
say,
i love you,
regardless of your quirks, your failings
and their quirks and failings.

...that is the right to love.
and to celebrate that love.

flight.

2008-04-02T11:19:00.000+08:00

yes. there are helpful people out there who put their talent and info on youtube and their own blogs, like creature comforts.

... looking at rounded corners immediately made me think of this series ive been keeping for a while.
i dont usually alter or decorate my pictures, preferring to leave them as clean records of a place/event in time
- with both aesthetic warts and technical flaws (both photographer and camera, usually due to ineptitude of former to exploit to advantage the latter).

but borders here isolate and frame the relationship between crane and temple, a foreboding process of construction and reconstruction threatening the obsolete and uneconomical. borders give nostalgia, and importance.

borders remind us to close in on to, pay attention, and draw its meanings imbedded within its delimited area.

looked up and saw contrast.
contrast hints at mutability and change;
inter-influence,
or that one would dominant the other.

[singapore. bugis. kwan im thong hood cho temple]

too much stuff.

2008-03-23T23:56:00.001+08:00

[singapore. bugis, opposite kwan im thong hood cho temple]

after a while, there was too much to snap. too many sights and wonders and trivia to put a frame around and ogle and muse at.

then- a nondescript alley, marked off by a tree laden with birds.
huh, what's that?, i asked.
nothingness.

... its interesting how cordoning off random stuff immediately focuses attention on it.
im glad annie leonard decided to do exactly that with her story of stuff.

have a look for a real perspective on the stuff in our lives.

-if you can go out shopping within 24hours of that, you are truly hardened.

back into the green womb.

2008-03-11T23:22:00.000+08:00

[north carolina, usa. along the haw river. -via lj.landscape]

take leave,
not only of yourself, but the masses around you.
replace human noise and excess
with natural calm and utility.

why do we not know you enough.

look closer. and wider.

2008-03-05T22:22:00.001+08:00

if the world is as our perpectives, then there are indeed as many worlds are there are people. looking at pictures of children both reminds you of the children, the untainted innocents, in the world, and of the world inhabited by them:

first the ability to see without judgement,
then the gift of seeing, always, for the first time
not an as if, but an ever renewed wonder,

and finally, perhaps, the skill of invigoration through the very act of seeing.

[ berlin. all images by santiago mostyn]

the next generation unfolds to remind the tired and numbed-
one of many: the use and gift of our sight,
unencumbered by prejudice,
freed from dulled expectations,
taking in life as it sees.

to look into his eyes
is to take on his world. and all that is within and without suddenly jars with yours.
knocked off your crusted stance
one breathes, fleetingly, the air of his world.

[germany. by santiago mostyn]

from norway.

2008-02-28T23:38:00.000+08:00

[by Sølve Sundsbø. via Sophie Richardoz's blog ]

once in a rare while, someone bleeds creativity, painting a world mind- blowing enough that it doesn't look like anything before it, and takes us through a leap into what seems like another dimension.

this world is by norwegian photographer Sølve Sundsbø, in the current issue of French Numéro.

if movement represents invigoration, growth, energy, then this picture is an art of dynamicism in itself...
........ swathes of freed imaginings
obscuring hard form and figure,
erasing fantasy from fact,
and dissolving all boundaries.

yup. it inspires poetry like that.

[northern norway. taken by Thomas Laupstad ]

north of the arctic circle, the sunsets (at midnight!) also seem out of this world. i suppose right in nature itself is where lessons in fantasy can be gleaned.

latent bombs.

2008-02-26T00:29:00.000+08:00

[khammouane province, laos. from the ramblingspoon ]

bombs which fell a decade ago, lie low
-and forgotten, almost-
until they flare up, indiscriminate,
to mar the lives of today
and recall the injustice of many yesterdays.

All last week, Jerry and I followed the affable Wisconsinite Jim Harris, who has dedicated his retirement to PCL and the people of Laos. We accompanied him and his bomb clearance team on their door-to-door, village-to-village excursions in the small district of Nakai. This is all part of our ongoing efforts to document the lasting effects of America’s “secret war” on Laos in the 1960s and 1970s...

Per capita, Laos is the most heavily bombed country on earth. US forces flew, on average, one bombing raid every eight minutes for nine years.

http://ramblingspoon.com/blog/?p=856

war-whoring for attention.

2008-02-18T20:22:00.000+08:00

provocation is a useful tactic to at least direct attention to what you want, if not get what you want (think Madonna, circa 1986 and conical bras). sometimes democracy is best exemplified by irony and parody- you may speak and blabber, but you have to poke right at the tender meat of the matter for anyone to truly listen.

perhaps the more we get to parody is a truer reflection of the amount of freedom we have to protest. democracy says, speak, even if you make me look silly.

[ -from Friends of the Earth ]

this was from 2003, against that war (hint: includes a certain Bush), perhaps the only war, which dominates our social consciousness.

urban tales.

2008-02-16T00:09:00.003+08:00

we attempt to make tangible and concrete that which we experience and seek to render meaningful.. and what is more real- in that it confronts and dominates the senses - than the concrete structures we erect around ourselves, altering our conscious landscape and building our selves into existence.

[ hamburg, germany]
if we built this city,

what do our manifestations of rock and mortar tell of our values and beliefs?
how do they influence and coerce our lifestyles and living?

[luebeck, germany.]

we are,
we make,
we become what we make.

[luebeck, germany.]
the perceived and believed, once realised, dominates.

[luebeck, germany. ]
cloistered in our urban claddings, we may feel safe and protected,

urban tales urban tales or stifled,

"The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the street, the gratings of the windows, the bannisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning-rods, the poles of the flags. Every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls"

- Italo Calvino, Cities & Memory

[chinatown, singapore. old shophouse staircase -taken by hc.]
,but perhaps we may also be enlightened ,but perhaps we may also be enlightened, by keeping trend of our physical developments as an organic society... to be confronted with what we were, are and are becoming.

all around is indeed a sensual education in what we are.

chinatown.

2008-02-09T12:54:00.000+08:00

most posts here run on a photo-to- thought philosophy;
visceral images provoking latent truths and ideas we all hold within us.

but i thought this quote from Mary Oliver so relatable and beautifully simple with its use of verbal imagery in its universal metaphor of a bride and groom*, that i wanted a place to immortalize it, preferably a place which could give earthly evidence to to it.

All my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom,
taking the world into my arms.
- Mary Oliver

( ..take the female/male aspect metaphorically, perhaps as a yin/yang, which we all have, whichever gender we align ourselves with )

- it's easy to be swamped by the magnitude of alpine mountains, flooded with a sense of magic by the unworldly, but after casting around for a tangible behemoth to match the quote, i realised it had already been exemplified by ...

[along chinatown street market.]
... the quiet awe i held walking around in the chinese new year chaos of chinatown, the childlike rapture gained from seeing the familiar for the first time, realising there exists a force holding us who created it in its sway.

artifacts calling our attention: sign, lamps, lights, speakers, institutions.

the human horde below, their dominant creations above.

does one too many diminish meaning?

modern pillars built around chinese-style shophouses from colonial times:
imposing structures, built to contain lives, to entertain lives and to imbibe life.

waiting for whom and what?

the gods above us, accorded with illumination and omnipotence-
of religion,
& of consumption.
our governments,
& our binding traditions.

did we create them, only to pick and choose who to defy and obey?

... if the knowledge of god is the most necessary,
then why is it not the most evident and the clearest?
-p. b. shelley.

both entranced by their surroundings.
father documenting, son washed away by exotic displays.

objectifying yourself comes true.

... look upon familiar faces with renewed love,
go over once more to check what you have missed,
and re-examine your idea of magic.

twilight-ing.

2008-02-05T23:24:00.000+08:00

departing from concrete daytodays for
a dip into fantasy and mystical dreamings..

[-from www.mischievousmeg.com/ ]
perhaps our imaginings are truly wider than the circumscribed world around us,
and at least a sense of wonder can suffice for real magic.

magic- merely means the unfathomable, supernatural, the unexplainable.
the unexplained is merely the unknown- to us,
if all life follows a set of laws, a given causation, however random that sequence may seem in itself;
if science has everything explained, and being in awe is seen as a corollary of being in ignorance...
perhaps we should realise

magic

is a factor of being alive, and in awe,
appreciation, gratitude,
and allowing yourself to be engaged and amazed.

[ -from Emsfilm ]
i certainly am amazed by the entire feel of this photo

and the poetry of,

(two shadows merge inseparably,
will time stand still
if its pierced with cold)

twilight descends on our silhouette
how soon
spring comes, how soon spring forgets
... hold time, say it will never begin
old man winter, be our friend.
old man winter, be our friend.

because the more i live,
the more i know:
what's simple is true.

-[jewel]

in the mood for ( ).

2008-02-03T12:22:00.000+08:00

ways of togetherness:

[-from aubreym.com ]
entwined arms,
cupped faces.
i like how their embrace forms a heart, headed (no pun intended) by the union of a kiss.

[-from aubreym.com ]
liberation /enchainment
movement+growth /status quo
love as life /love as expectation

the light and colours throw all -nature and person- into a harmonious dynamic. even her hair harks back to the bush at the back.
...and dresses as free and light as the clouds above. certainly a contrast against heavy, monolithic wedding gowns.

[-from aubreym.com ]
contemplation from afar?

subtlety, never showing all-
as your eye, cutting down a frame forces one to look beyond the form, already familiar and habitual, towards the details within.

[-from aubreym.com ]
one thing the physical form is good for- intricate entwinnings.

[-from aubreym.com ]

literal sands of time.

2008-01-27T22:35:00.000+08:00

[ Kolmanscop, southern Namibia. from http://fogonazos.blogspot.com/. thanks, hc]
empty, and barren, of what it was built to contain.
nature moved in.

the diamond rush of 1908 lured hordes and established their settlements,
including school and casino, hospital and rich housings.

diamond sales died off with world war one. people left.

by 1950, the shifting sands reclaimed their land.

[ Kolmanscop, southern Namibia. from http://fogonazos.blogspot.com/ ]

and this is how nature claims and intrudes-
grain by grain-
until the full weight of its organic mass is upon you and you must yield.

bent.

2008-01-24T23:48:00.000+08:00

[dhanuskodi, india. from lj- Landscapes.]

this reminds one of Patagonian extremes, where trees, too, grow parallel to the ground,
and grass dig tight into the soil-

shaped by unseen forces,
moulded, embraced, coerced-
a sensuous battle between object and environment
counted only by time.

kinda like social forces around us eh?

2008-01-20T21:15:00.000+08:00

chanced upon katarina radovic's photos. perhaps it was the unusual, and yet highly pertinent, subject matter (personal ads as conjured by the self), but i was suddenly boggled by the realness of a third persona we harbour,

beneath the Self we project in our interactions with others (myriad in itself),
and above (separate from?) the core self we believe we have at our base,

this third persona also stems from the Self, pointing to our wildest imaginings and heartfelt aspirations, loose from any real-world prohibition, but nevertheless very much tied to our desire to "fit into" that world, albeit dominantly and triumphantly-- a 'hey, look at Me.'

just as personal ads squeeze us into a concentrated strain- inches, typeface, stereo-characteristics, i thought i'd simply lay in their wake,
three words they brought to surface for me.

[ -from katarina radovic.]
dreams- eyes- asunder

underneath- cerebral- double

plea- please - smoke

enchained - aggression - play

hopes - sex - belong

pride - hard - hurt

we typically enter in exchanges with only the Acted Self of another, and from time to time, a sense of fairness and generosity may expand our minds to see the Core Self beneath.

perhaps keeping in mind the Aspired Selves of others may allow compassion to bleed into our hearts, such that we see the weight of ghosts unfulfilled in the people around us.

attempts - reincarnations - heart

on society:

...(and so) i thought studying this decrepit swarm of humankind could yield answers for our (mal)functions. so i read about us, and huff and sigh about it.

to seek.

2008-01-17T23:34:00.000+08:00

seek: O.E. secan "visit, inquire, pursue," influenced by O.N. soekja, both from P.Gmc. *sokjanan (cf. O.S. sokian, O.Fris. seka, M.Du. soekan, O.H.G. suohhan, Ger. suchen, Goth. sokjan), from PIE *sag- "to track down, to trace" (cf. L. sagire "to perceive quickly or keenly," sagus "presaging, predicting," O.Ir. saigim "seek"). The modern form of the word as uninfluenced by O.N. is in beseech.; The religious sect of the Seekers is attested from 1645.

beseech: c.1175, bisecen "to beseech, beg urgently," from be- + M.E. secen "to seek

[from www.etymonline.com]

[burma. inle -all photos in this post by gabrielle bertier]
searching
for?

the means with which we conduct our investigations.

graceful dome, uncanny symmetry-
an astonishing work by nature.

how can one still believe in randomness when the most impersonal of all shows such calculated cunning?

uniforms and aculturation make all the same-
so does love and affection.

and we grow into
that which we learn?
what do we learn.

while searching for the light, will we, blind and small as we are, rush right by it;
does it blind us, whence we still cannot take on its glory and might?

"... god almighty wont remain almighty if people knows how he looks like.
god might be so mighty that he'll blow your socks off... "

[laos. ]
end the day exhausted.
the night won't offer respite:
one's ignorance is either temporary
- then brace yourself for the liminal test-
or death- in which you've lost at the grand game of life.
(eternally looking for something more,

until it is found.)

random (?) sparks

2008-01-15T01:15:00.000+08:00

[after laos. udon thani night market]
puppies upon puppies, in cages, for sale.

[laos. vientiene]
people as conduits for ideals, dreams, truth.
and this, the glaze of memory:
should it be separated from the event itself?

Suddenly had this thought:
if Truth is something already to be found
within us,
and to experience Heaven is to be reunited with Truth,
then Heaven can be enjoyed,
-Heaven can be had-,
right here on earth in our lives.

There really is no dichotomy between Heaven and Earth,
just as the ancients believed-
and we really are connected
with the whole universe.

..Heaven on earth... Can you imagine!

[laos. vientiene]
monks' robes hanging out to dry.

silencio.

2008-01-11T13:24:00.000+08:00

[tasek bera, malaysia]
an impassive front.

what does it mean to be silent, to offer and reveal nothing.
will it draw you in, or be ignored.
where is silence born from. what are the variations.
(output is secondary to input)
(but one's feeding depends on another's willingness to sacrifice)

an impassive front invites many speculations, when none is needed, only patience.