Ramblings from the past: MoMA

In my iPod Touch, I've amassed an archive of random notes. I suppose it's what happens when I forget my favorite pen and notebook and didn't have anyone else to talk to at the moment. This note made me laugh.

...written March 23 of last year...

How a rotting piece of wood encased in glass can be a piece of art is beyond me, when no energy or thought was even put to it. Like an archaeological artifact out of context, this "artwork" to me means nothing. A driftwood picked up on a hike placed in a glass case suddenly worth thousands. Really?

...Also. Tehching Hsieh. Performance artist. Bigger masochist than David Blane. The things people want to freak the world with.

I run to

I run to...

Forget.
Think.
Clear my head.
Run away.
Talk to myself.
Hide.
Disappear.

...sometimes you just want to push the mute-button to the world and pause the noise for a bit.

under the rock

Hah. How fitting. Found this comic through a digi-art blog. Hi-larious.

Credits to the Oh Brother! comics website and artists.

Solitude in silence.

I miss those days of inspiration

and of the freedom to roam.

I miss those nights of melancoly

walks through the cypress corridor

in the hills of La Toscana.

The nights when the moon's beam

lit the way

and the toad's hiccup gave harmony to the cicadas.

The end of the cobbled bridge marked the entryway

to La Cascina

where barrels filled with vino lined the halls within

and promises of romance whispered sweet nothings from its walls.

I miss those days of inspiration

and my blissfully naive ignorance of the world.

@}-->---

8.12.2010

The Swell Season and Low Anthem

The Swell Season live from Prospect Park, BK.

The Set List:
Low Rising
In These Arms
The Rain
Lies -- broken guitar string--
If You Want Me
Fantasy Man
Leave
Backbroke
Into the Mystic
I Have Loved You Wrong
Revelate
Minds Made Up
Falling Slowly
----
Encore:
Marketa's new song
Gold
High Hope
High Horses

Use the truth as a weapon to beat up all your friends  Every chink in the armor An excuse to cause offense  And the boys from the hallway calling out your name  And true love will find them in the end  
You were restless I was somewhere less secure  So I went running to the road  And so now there's a long list of places I was  I quit my rambling and came home 
Cause maybe I was born to hold you in these arms  Maybe I was born to hold you in these arms   
Use your saints and your mantra  And your things to keep you calm  If you stay with that asshole  he's gonna do you harm  There's a voice singing loudly on the radio just for you  And good fortune will find him in the end  
Maybe I was born to hold you in these arms  Maybe I was born to hold you in these arms   Maybe I was born to hold you in these arms  Maybe I was born to hold you in these arms 

let go of my hand, you've already gone

Glen Hansard of The Swell Seasons/The Frames. A man with a penchant for wrenchingly passionate melodies. At the recent concert in Prospect Park with Marketa Irglova, he broke through 5 strings, one of which was during this song and as his stage hand switched guitars, he continued belting out this haunting melody with such angst and so much passion... the man needed no microphone that evening.

What a night. What a performer.

I can't wait forever is all that you said
Before you stood up
And you won't disappoint me
I can do that myself
But I'm glad that you've come
Now if you don't mind

Leave, leave,
And free yourself at the same time
Leave, leave,
I don't understand, you've already gone

And I hope you feel better
Now that it's out
What took you so long
And the truth has a habit
Of falling out of your mouth
But now that it's come
If you don't mind

Leave, leave,
And please yourself at the same time
Leave, leave,
Let go of my hand
You said what you have to now
Leave, leave,
Let go of my hand
You said what you came to now
Leave, leave,
Leave, leave,
Let go of my hand
You said what you have to now
Leave, leave

gold-digging bear!

Who would leave an adorable little mouse for an ugly green frog?
This song reminds me so much of the film "500 Days of Summer".



there are worse ways for a guy to spend his time
than to sit and think of you
i think i'd marry you
just your smile
leaves me satisfied
though you're not mine

so for the rest of my life
i'm gonna search for someone just like you

and we tend the garden all day long
watching history unfold
and i'd be enough
and you'd be enough
and we'd grow old

so for the rest of my life
i'm gonna search for someone just like you

for the rest of my life
i'm gonna search for someone just like you

yeah, for the rest of my life
i'm gonna search for someone just like you
-Rilo Kiley, "For the rest of my life."

alone is okay

Tanya Davis - How to be alone.

Society is afraid of alone though. Like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements. Like people must have problems if after awhile no one is dating them. But lonely is a freedom that breaths easy and weightless, and lonely is healing if you make it. You can stand swaffed by groups and mobs and hands with your partner, look both further and farther in the endless quest for company. But no one is in your head. And by the time you translate your thoughts an essence of them maybe lost or perhaps it is just kept. Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those sappy slogans from pre-school over to high school groaning, we’re tokens for holding the lonely at bay. Cause if you’re happy in your head, and solitude is blessed, and alone is okay., Its okay if no one believes like you, all experiences unique, no one has the same synapses can’t think like you, this me/ be ?, keeps things interesting, life’s magic brings much, and it doesn’t mean you aren’t connected, the community is not present, just take back to you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it. Take silence and respect it, if you have an art that needs practice stop neglecting it, if your family doesn’t get you or a religious sect is not meant for you, don’t obsess about it. You could me in an instant surrounded if you need it, if your heart is bleeding, make the best of it, there is heat and freezing be a testament.

Queen's lead guitarist in one life, and Astrophysicist in the next

NPR has this great interview with Queen's Brian May and how he is now this brilliant astrophysicist who, after recording and making millions with Freddie Mercury while concocting the famous "stamp-stamp-clap" sequence of "We Will Rock You", continued on to write a dissertation on Space Dust and its contribution to the creation of the universe.

Pretty freaking awesome.

James Franco: the portrait of a mortal's superhuman ambition

Recently, New York Magazine featured a stunningly honest portrait of actor James Franco. He is a man whose eccentricities have catapulted him to Hollywood fame, yet whose real persona is anything but that of an A-lister.

James Franco is a graduate student in no less than four different arts programs and who, next year, will be beginning a PhD program in Yale along with another graduate program in some other university, all the while acting, directing, publishing, producing, and breathing. One must wonder when he even has time to take a shower.

As soon as Franco finished at UCLA, he moved to New York and enrolled in four of them: NYU for filmmaking, Columbia for fiction writing, Brooklyn College for fiction writing, and—just for good measure—a low-residency poetry program at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. This fall, at 32, before he’s even done with all of these, he’ll be starting at Yale, for a Ph.D. in English, and also at the Rhode Island School of Design. After which, obviously, he will become president of the United Nations, train a flock of African gray parrots to perform free colonoscopies in the developing world, and launch himself into space in order to explain the human heart to aliens living at the pulsing core of interstellar quasars.
-- Sam Anderson, New York Magazine

Admiration and awe is what I took away from this article.

He’s not a savant or an obvious genius—he’s someone of mortal abilities who seems to be working immortally hard.
-- Sam Anderson, New York Magazine

It's fascination how driven James Franco is. Be it luck or the fame game, a person [insert graduate student] cannot fake achievements and productivity. Given that his name and reputation as a Hollywood A-lister will preceed him anywhere--including offers for publication and acceptances to top graduate programs in the arts--one cannot but look on with awe at how a person can just eat, breathe, and live something that they love. And his drive to do everything all at once while he can is the exact drive that any graduate student of any profession can only hope to have... and not lose track of.


...it kind of puts things in perspective for the rest of us mere mortals.


He may not be the kind of genius Orson Welles was, but James Franco's driven nature should undoubtedly be admired.

We don't know what fate has in stored for him, but we do know one thing: that he paves his own path and blazes the trails as he goes forth.

The imperfections of James Franco's work leaves that mark of humanity and vulnerability and personally, it makes watching his very public struggle and progress all the more fascinating.


In his first year at New York University, he once sat on a couch next to me. After a quick glance and acknowledgement that the seat beside me was empty, not a word was uttered. But I looked over and wondered if he was, indeed, in this for a real education, pursuing a higher level of understanding for his profession... or was he just another Hollywood face making a mark at the university to add to the list of uninteresting an failed students (like the Olsen twins).

A year and a half later, Sam Anderson's portrait of Franco's journey shows that he is unlike any other. For my part, I only hope he succeeds at everything that he has on his plate... because I can only relate to his drive... the difference is that James Franco is actually getting his cake and tasting it, too.

dance with me, little stranger

LOVE Nouvelle Vague

life-track: Clean

There's a place around my heart that you wish for
When you pretend its never there
What are you living for?

Come back and see me some time, she said
Thinking he'd rather be dead.
But eventually I might give her a ring instead

Would you talk to me?
Would you talk to me?
I want everything to be so clean
So clean

When you're alone,
You'll ask yourself things
I bet you were not
Even thinking all these things
One time its clear to you
All the things you know
He even reminds me of the kid we used to know

Would you talk to me?
Would you talk to me?
I want everything to be so clean.
So clean.

There's a place around my heart
that you hope for
When you pretend its never there
What do you answer for?

Come back and see me sometime, she said.
Thinking he'd be dead.
But eventually, I might give her a book instead

Would you talk to me?
Would you talk to me?
I want everything to be so clean.
So clean.

Would you talk to me?
Would you talk to me?
Would you talk to me?
Would you talk to me?

I want everything to be so clean.
So clean.

life-track: Shampoo

Here I go again
Late for another passing train
Oh, the good times we had
Another morning comes
Left another record on
Had a good night for all

Last thing that I remember
Things were getting better
I’ll go anywhere with you

So we rise
Off to make another run of it
Pass the time, we say goodbye
Here we are again enclosed
Wake me up, I’m ready to go
Oh, the sunset tonight

Last thing that I remember
Things were getting better
Last thing that I remember
Things were getting better
And I’d go anywhere with you

Here I go again
Late for another passing train
Oh the good times lie ahead
Last thing that I remember
Things were getting better
Last thing that I remember
Things were getting better
Last thing that I remember
Things were getting better
I would go anywhere with you

life-track: I am the Cosmos

Every night I tell myself,
"I am the cosmos,
I am the wind"
But that don't get you back again
Just when I was starting to feel okay
You're on the phone
I never wanna be alone
Never wanna be alone
I hate to have to take you home
Wanted too much to say no, no,
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Never wanna be alone
I hate to have to take you home
Want you too much to say no, no
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
My feeling's always happening
Something I couldn't hide
I can't confide
Don't know what's going on inside
So every night I tell myself
"I am the cosmos,
I am the wind"
But that don't get you back again
I'd really like to see you again
I really wanna see you again
I'd really like to see you again
I really wanna see you again
I'd really like to see you again
I really wanna see you again
I never wanna see you again
Really wanna see you again

addicted to koreanovelas

Talk about obsession. Some of the korean soaps and dramas are so heartwrenchingly good (they're an excellent way to beat that jetlag..) but here's a recent blog entry that had me laughing so hard. Primarily because people in the Philippines are practically the same when it comes to their favorite dramas. And myself, when it comes to GLEE and Korea's Coffee Prince.

http://www.dramabeans.com/2010/07/your-addiction-stories-giveaway-winner-announced/

la gitana

Como echo de menos mi vida gitanilla... Sometimes, Shakira just gets those lyrics right. *sigh* :-/
Also, how can one go wrong with an oiled up, dirty, half-nekked Rafa Nadal.

Ugh, feel that chemistry.
..brings back memories...

hot daym--random

Choreographer for this NEEDS to win the award for hottest, sexiest, limbs flailing all over the place choreo EVER.




Also... here's the link to Shakira's play by play of this hernia-inducing video. In another life, I will be THAT freakishly awesome.

And one more thing. The name of that bed-scene dancer (who is now the main protagonist of all my dreams) is Daniel "Cloud" Campos, a Florida-born magician...I mean dancer. Here's a video of his crazy-hotness.

Grad School = kindergarten

Funny, sad... and so true.

The train to a snowy city

I have quite the soft spot for trains and train stations. Must be the nostalgia of my backpacker days. It feels comforting to be on a real train and not just a subway car. That feeling of running past sites and sounds of a landscape as you head on a long journey flying past trees, hills, small towns and racing with cars.

Today it snows outside the train car's window. As we head west, the water drops slowly transform into slushy ice. And further out as we speed past Minneola, the sleet has transformed itself into a powdery snow that now blankets the platform, billboards and parked cars. It is the quiet peacefulness that the atmosphere outside invokes that reminds me of how trains were always my most favorite places to reflect on travels of the past, the present, and to build my future journeys.

***

On our first long weekend in the Spring semester of 2005, I decided to take a solo journey from Florence to Palermo, Sicily. A ballsy move for someone who was still learning the language, I decided that the best way to delve into the culture was to step outside the bounds of my comfort zone (namely, a 4-villa estate filled with American students, most of whom had no interest in Italian culture beyond making out with Italians and getting drunk on wine), take a 13-hour ride on a midnight train to the depths of Italy where there was slim chance of encountering an english-speaking native.

That night, I ran to the Santa Maria Novella train station with my pre-bought tickets and hopped on the first car sitting on the via where my train was going to be--at least it said so on the printed schedule.

The train begins to move and I realize that it seemed far more of a commuter train than a sleeper train... but I didn't think too much of it... until the man who sat across from me asked me where I was headed in Italian, and in my spantalian, I replied "a train bound for Sicily".

Surprise, surprise. The train I was on was headed for the hills, quite literally. It was, indeed, a commuter train bound for the hills of Fiesole and completely chugging in the wrong direction.

I started to slightly panic, strode to the first conductor I could find, and told him my dilemma. He runs off to the engineer and talks some stuff that was beyond my 2-week Italian comprehension, and next thing I know, I was being left behind on a station platform in the middle of no-where-Tuscany hoping I wouldn't get mugged or kidnapped... and praying that maybe I'll run into some nun who will help me find my way.

The conductor said just wait at the platform and everything would be okay. They waved goodbye and started chugging off into the darkness... and boy, was it dark.

But no more than 5-minutes later, a train heading back to Santa Maria Novella arrived with the new conductor telling me I could catch my train for Sicily at the closer station one stop before the Florence city center... Turns out they communicated to find out where they would be crossing paths so I could quickly take my train back.

Thus began my most memorable first trip on my own and my love affair with Italy, its people, its culture, and of course, its gastronomic brilliance.

My friends are AWESOME

Vicariously living through the adventures of equally adventurous friends and admiring how they can so eloquently share their adventures.

Keep it up, Lyss!



Shared obsessions...
Me: "I am camping in front of that sign-in table 30 mins before. I know them spinning fiends will try and get all up on our instructor. I want dibs on the machine with the best view of his ass."
M: "Exactly!"



Best quote to date:

Upon speaking with Top Chef 3: CJ...

"[He] asked me what i liked to eat, told me i 'sound sweet' that he 'can't wait to meet' which means...
WE ARE GOING TO FALL IN LOVE AND GET MARRIED"

Hahaha. That is EXACTLY how I would like to meet my prince charming.
Man, my friends are AWESOME. Yes, they are.