i love the sprint ad with the brooding, suave looking guy who, at the very end, gets a closeup and holds up the samsung phone and says "instinct" with much facial bravado. love it. and here i've captured a shot:
speaking of instincts, last night i debated at the exploratorium on the resolution: "whole genome scanning should be done through doctors" (or something along those lines). i don't have time to delve deep right now (hopefully i'll update this with more one of these days..), but i just wanted to share two things. first, steven pinker's article on the topic, and if you scroll to the end of this colbert repot, you'll see an interview with him which is very funny, but also touches on some of the major issues.
tonight i decided to do a bit of a dive into the "yes" on proposition 8 campaign -- i'm trying to understand the fundamental arguments for this proposition. ok, some quick background. the proposition is quite clearly titled: "Eliminates the Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry." a similar proposition was passed by voters in 2000, but struck down by the california supreme court. this proposition would embed the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman into the california constitution, and could not be struck down by the state supreme court.
now, among other things, the "yes" campaign has put a lot of focus on the effects of this proposition on schools and churches. first, on schools, the "yes" campaign has this interesting video:
i think it's worth watching, for educational purposes. these are massachusetts residents who discuss their perceived effects of the MA law. anyway, some stirring quotes. if the bill is passed, there will be "homosexuality at every level" in our schools, and in every discipline: "math, reading, social studies, spelling." indeed, spelling. can you spell "fear-mongering" and "intolerance."
i love this desire the parents express concerning their children: that their children "not have them face adult issues when they're children." one of the parents expresses their revulsion at having their children exposed to these ideas prior to "their choosing." !
now, to the effects on religious institutions. i love how the "yes" campaign is letting others say things for them, rather than actually saying what is the truth. take this line, from the "yes" site. it appears in a letter to the editor of the orange county register:
Churches will be forced to perform same-sex marriages even if that is contrary to the church's position. Churches would not be able to use their doctrinal beliefs to defend their positions.
now, i don't know where this is coming from. the separation of church and state is guaranteed by the US constitution (the amendments, i think, to be exact). so the IRS, the law.. they are not going to be gunning for churches that resist marrying same-sex couples. this is A+ fear-mongering.
anyway, i can't see how if you're in a same-sex partnership, but it's not titled marriage, that somehow people are going to afford what you have the same dignity and respect as what married people have. "separate but equal" in this case seems to smack of discrimination based on sexual preference. if you feel your religion compels you to vote for this resolution, i don't expect to convince you otherwise. but i'd really like to know if there are more compelling arguments to support this resolution.
finally, this proposition, despite amending the constitution, still needs only 50% + 1 of the vote, not a super-majority. and current polls indicate that the yes campaign is leading. so..
i love alfred hitchcock. vertigo is one of my favorite movies. so, recently, i saw north by northwest.
now, to be honest, it isn't as good as vertigo. however, it has some wonderful scenes. in the scene below, from right at the beginning of the movie, a case of mistaken identity turns into something far more sinister. i think this part is played to perfection, and martin landau, who you see on the right in the still below, is superb. i felt uncomfortable just thinking about the absurdity of it all..
when you enter the exhibit area, you first only see a girl blowing at you. exactly like the video below:
then, you turn around and see a second screen (shown in this next video, be patient):
can you guess what's going on? it's not easy from these videos.
anyway, the artist erected two screens, one with a woman blowing at the camera, and another, across from the woman's screen, depicting a street in shanghai. whenever the woman blows, the other screen speeds up. it's a wonderful visual and aural depiction of the rapid growth and change in shanghai that has swept up the city. now imagine walking in an art space and constantly hearing that blowing sound from the first video. a bit eerie!
i watched a fascinating video from TED that discusses creativity in children, and how schools kill creativity. in a class i took this past semester, we spoke on exactly this problem -- that schools, by foregrounding scores and academic performance, and consistently backgrounding creativity and subjects where creativity is crucial, were destroying the creative spark that exists in all children.
of course, the immediate retort, especially if you're talking about educating children from populations that typically don't have good access to educational resources, is that there is a particular system we live in, and if you want kids to be successful, then they need to play the game. if they don't play the game, you risk putting them in a situation later in life where they can't succeed because they haven't developed the skills that the system expects of them. in the TED talk, which i've pasted below, the speaker, ken robinson, a longtime educator, states that he believes creativity is the skill that's worth something in these times.
my friend chris recommended the band elbow to me, and i've been eating up their stuff. this tune, "grounds for divorce," has a slow brewing tension and an easy rock feel. at the same time, it's quite repetitive, and the video emphasizes that fact. i think that repeition is a nice piece of the meditation on a particular time in life.
you can't help but wonder about the lives of sheep when you visit new zealand. i must have already seen tens of thousands of them. there are roughly 40 million sheep, and only about 4 million people on this island!
now, every year lambs are born, and we can all guess their fate. but what about those tens of thousands of sheep i've seen roaming the countryside? why, they are used for wool, of course! we wanted to see how they shear sheep, and boy did we... check out the two videos below.
sheepy doesn't look too happy, but she was bouncing about afterwards. getting all that extra hair off might be nice.
tonight i saw baby mama with some friends. all the friends were women. i went to a chick flick with a bunch of women. warning bells? meanwhile, men all around me were cozying up to iron man, which looked far more appropriate for me.
but i baby mama'd anyway. and instead of typing up my thoughts, here's me, video blogging! what? yeah!
i have to work on my delivery. could use some plants behind my head. i'll work on presentation and the set, i promise, if you think this is worth doing.
finally, i chose a wolf parade song that i thought was an appropriate contrast to this one-shot, easy-does-it-margaret culture.
last night in boston i encountered the most power hand drier i have ever used. the way it man-handled my skin made me want to film it. and i did! WARNING: the video is a bit disturbing.
after making this video i realize i need more powerful video editing software. there were things i wanted to do that just aren't easy or possible in windows movie maker. i'm learnin..
the trader joe's in back bay is ridiculously tiny. it has 2 full aisles and then two sort of half aisles. but i would choose to go to that trader joe's almost always over any other one, or any other grocery store. why? because it has mostly what i need, and because of the paradox of choice. before getting into this, let me tell you what inspired me to write this post. neha and i were walking back from the trader joe's and she told me that she had tried the shaws grocery store, which was also nearby. she said it was huge and had everything but it took her over an hour to navigate all the aisles and she just became so miserable with all the choices. she said she thought that was strange, but in fact it's not strange at all, and it's well-known in psychology that if you give people "too many" choices they can become overwhelmed and paralyzed, and may not make the best decision or any decision at all.
this leads to barry schwartz, the author of the book "the paradox of choice," a layman's guide to the problem described above. here's a short blurb from the intro to his ted talk:
In Schwartz's estimation, all that choice is making us miserable. We set unreasonably high expectations, question our choices before we even make them, and blame our failures entirely on ourselves. His relatable examples, from consumer products (jeans, TVs, salad dressings) to lifestyle choices (where to live, what job to take, whom and when to marry), underscore this central point: Too many choices undermine happiness.
if you find this topic interesting, i highly recommend that you watch either the ted talk (which is short) or the google tech talk given by barry, which is much longer and embedded below:
i took pictures along a small street as i approached the duomo in florence. then i quickly put it together with my favorite song of the moment, crimewave by crystal castles. check it out. notice that the duomo, the large red-domed building, approaches and falls back to the music (or, at least that's what i wanted!)
jeff introduced me to crystal castles, an electronic music band out of toronto. i love their song crimewave so much that i purchased it on itunes, an extremely strange thing for me to do. listen to it here:
you can also see jeff in this short youtube clip (love the mustache):
neha and i went to the timbuk2 store in hayes valley yesterday, looking for a new bag to replace neha's bazillion year old version. the sales person, noticing i had a camera, told me to take some pictures with the flash on. what an event! here's our first sample, sans flash:
now i turned on the flash, and voila, a beautiful pink!
this set is not pink, but in some ways much more dramatic. this is the same bag, i kid you not!
bikers should feel quite safe with these bags on their backs.
neha did get a bag, but not the following, it was too big and she probably could've carried me in it:
i have a soft spot in my heart for excellent commercials. i found firebrand.com today, a site that aggregates wonderful commercials from around the world. i browsed around and found the following brilliant commercial. i love it:
i'm actually seriously thinking about getting a smart car in the future, if i need a car. this ad made me feel that choosing a smart car would be a safe decision.
today i babysat my cousin's son. despite being two, he was not terrible. in fact, he was pleasant. that is, until he started grooving to my daft punk but refused to dance with me. hope you enjoy his alternative dance partner suggestion, shown in the video below:
also, while babysitting i constructed some situations which amused me to no end. below you'll see alien vs predator :)
woohoo i sewed on a button. i haven't sewn in a very long time, mainly because (1) it was so traumatic when i took home ec back in grade school and (2) i haven't really had the need. yes, in grades 6-8, i took unified arts, a class divided into 3 sections: woodworking, arts and crafts, and home economics. i loved woodworking and arts and crafts (well, "love" might be a strong word for arts and crafts) but i loathed home economics. the teacher, ms. donovan, had some pretty strange rules, like no salt *AT ALL* in any dish. if the recipe called for salt, you'd skip it. we produced some bland, bland dishes.
the home ec final sewing project required us to sew a complicated pattern and create something wonderful. being into basketball at the time, i chose to sew a plush basketball. it was supposed to turn out something like this:
but instead it turned out looking more like a deformed pumpkin. i think ms donovan, with her sense of humor, told me that it was the most original plush basketball she had ever seen. i tried to find it in my parents' house so i could share with you, dear reader. but alas, it seems to have bounced off (or maybe it was mistakenly carved).
ANYWAY, sewing. so i needed to sew a button on a jacket. what did i do? i went to my good friend youtube and found this video:
it was exactly what i needed. my button is back in service.
sasha frere-jones, the pop music critic for the new yorker, showed this amazing video at his talk. it's a style of fast footwork that has come out of the chicago area. watch their feet!
niniane and i made breakfast today. i wanted to get good at making omelets, so i followed a video i found online (videos for cooking techniques are so great!). here's the video, it's short, and the guy in it is kinda funny looking (why is he wearing his shirt that open? and that apron!) but he does a great job explaining the key steps in the omelet production process:
the one thing i couldn't get was the flip. like with riding a bike, it's hard to explain, even in a video -- some things you just gotta do. twice i half flipped my omelet, wrecking its beauty at the very end. but i love the flipping motion and later tried to put raja in a big box with a handle so i could flip him. he was not happy. anyway, niniane said my thyme and cheddar omelet was great, and i concur -- certainly the best omelet i have ever made.
as with all meandering niniane-omar conversations, we somehow arrived at my distaste for food near feet. i've discussed feet on this blog before, and now would like to say how crazy i get when i see feet near food. there's just something so incongruous with this alignment. for me, it's like nails on a chalkboard. i want to rescue the food, but at the same time toss it, because if it's been that close to feet, something just ain't right.
If Bonzai did anything wrong, FFFT, it was not using boys as plates at the same time it was using girls as plates. That's why The Stranger will be hosting Naked Doughnuts, a special happy-hour event at Bonzai this Friday night at 6:00 p.m. Two good-looking guys will be laid out on the bar and covered with Top Pot doughnuts. Bonzai Asian Pub & Bistro is at 704 First Avenue. Ogle the boys, eat the donuts, fuck the clenchbutts.
this discussion lead to a point of clarification. it's not that i'm against bodies caressing food, it's just feet and food! i think it'd be fascinating to take some rice and put it on a naked body that's clean but starting to sweat, just to taste the salty flavor imbued in the rice (now that you think i'm gross/nuts pontificate for a moment on all the wonderfully crazy things you think are interesting.. one.. two.. three.. ok let's resume). but keep that rice away from the feet, no matter how clean!
