Photos and accompanying thoughts have moved to

hhttp://thoughtgraphy.wordpress.com/

Miscellaneous bits and pieces will eventually migrate.

Come over to the other side.

something i felt today.

[? . 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.

the real green engineering.

[ 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.

call my berlin bluff.

[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.

seeing is inspiring/ god is in the details.

[ 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

?

berlin fashion.

[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.

[ .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

grace cathedral hill: are you feeling better now

[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.

[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 ]

perfect valentine.

[ . 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.

in fashion.

[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.

world.

[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.

[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.

[ .found in back in skinnyjeans]

are they necessarily in different directions?

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

looking at fashion.

[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.

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

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.

[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

i look up to see- a flogo?

[- 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.

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.