Adam (Psybe)

Colleen Blackard

Scribles & KC (Gnomes Grown)

Ninetta Nappi

Art by Kaliptus

Art by Kaliptus

Art of Kaliptus

Art by Kaliptus

Jh Miller

Anna Ryabtsov

Kris Dulfer

Art by Kris Dulfer

Roland Ramos & Papa Ramos

Dorian R. Monsalve

Art by Martin Cash

Bioluminescence, Baby Zohar, Analis Cardenas and Caridad Rivera

Art by Vincent Zambrano

Uta Brauser

Anna Dominguez & The Melinder

James Cardena buys one of the “Hyperspace” series by Kaliptus

TELEPATHIC DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO SHAMANS
Ink & watercolors on paper/5×7 inches

DESIGN YOUR OWN PARADISE
Ink & watercolors on paper/5×7 inches

HYPNAGOGIC VISION OF THE NOMMOS
Ink & watercolors on paper/5×7 inches

YETI WIZARD
Ink & watercolors on paper/5×7 inches

VEIL KEEPER
Ink & watercolors on paper/5×7 inches

COSMIC ENGINE
Ink & watercolors on paper/5×7 inches

CAVE ELDER
Ink & watercolors on paper/5×7 inches

INSECTOIDAL ENCOUNTER
Ink & watercolors on paper/5×7 inches

HE WHO MAKES THE GRASS GREEN
Ink & watercolors on paper/5×7 inches

Artworks by Kaliptus©2012
All Rights Reserved

I’m excited to be one of the artists to exhibit at Hennessy Youngman’s “It’s a Small, Small World” Group Artshow at Family Business Gallery. Lot’s of art celebrities, collectors, artists and cool people came to the opening reception. Spank Rock also performed which was fucking awesome. Show is up from April 3rd to the 16th

For more photos click below
IT’S A SMALL SMALL WORLD by Hennessy Youngman at Family Business!

Orchard Windows Gallery presents BEYOND THE ABYSS
Solo Art Exhibition by KALIPTUS
Curated by DINO ELI

Opening Reception: January 13th 2012
Exhibition: January 13th to January 20th

Kaliptus has created a universe of its own, an exhibition of multimedia and contemporary fine arts that takes those present on a vision quest to the gap in between the Real and the Unreal. Experience a sensory overload of divine trauma that points the finger at man, the mind, some of the deepest secrets of the universe and what lies beyond the “inner abyss”

This exhibition took place inside two galleries

“THANATOS” Room: Orchard Windows Gallery on 37 Orchard Street NY
“EROS” Room: Dino Eli Gallery on 81 Hester Street NY

Here are some photos of the event.
Click here for photos of Eros Room
kaliptus.blogspot.com/2012/01/beyond-abyss-eros-room-photos.html
Click here for photos of Thanatos Room
kaliptus.blogspot.com/2012/01/beyond-abyss-thanatos-room-photos_15.html

(Both galleries are a walkable distance from each other and no less than a few yards apart.)

Improv sounds by PHUSE.ANALYSIS

facebook.com/pages/Phuse-analysis/151413218210110

For gallery inquires please call 917-995-1001
email: windowgallery@gmx.com

orchardwindowsgallery.com/
kaliptus.blogspot.com/

EROS ROOM | Dino Eli Gallery, New York

THANATOS ROOM | Orchard Windows Gallery, New York

Orchard Windows Gallery presents BEYOND THE ABYSS
Solo Art Exhibition by KALIPTUS
Curated by DINO ELI

On the first Friday, the 13th of 2012, step into a portal that will take you through and beyond the abyss.

Kaliptus has created a universe of its own, an exhibition of multimedia and contemporary fine arts that takes those present on a vision quest to the gap in between the Real and the Unreal. Experience a sensory overload of divine trauma that points the finger at man, the mind, some of the deepest secrets of the universe and what lies beyond the “inner abyss”

This exhibition takes place inside two galleries

“THANATOS” Room: Orchard Windows Gallery on 37 Orchard Street
“EROS” Room: Dino Eli Gallery on 81 Hester Street

Here are some photos of the event.
Click here for photos of Eros Room
Click here for photos of Thanatos Room

(Both galleries are a walkable distance from each other and no less than a few yards apart.)

Improv sounds by PHUSE.ANALYSIS

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Phuse-analysis/151413218210110

For gallery inquires please call 917-995-1001
email: windowgallery@gmx.com

http://www.orchardwindowsgallery.com/

http://kaliptus.blogspot.com/

another very successful opening for Jamie Martinez at Orchard Windows Gallery for “I’m having trouble cutting this ballerina”. This is Jamie’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. The collection consisted of eight paintings of this gorgeous ballerina, who took over 500 photos at Jamie’s studio, and then, he handpicked 8 of the best poses to become paintings. The most intriguing part of the collection is how he broke the painting into triangles (The technique is called Triangulism); which is what he is known for. Triangulism deconstructs the image by using geometric triangles, and by process of elimination, only its core triangles are left to show its true meaning, form and structure. He believes that everything in life is part of a three point system: beginning, middle, and end. The triangles give the paintings a bit more contrast because the ballerina is so soft, gentle and flexible; while the triangles are stiff, sharp, and give the painting a lot of structure. He also showed two large framed story boards of his photographs; which are a mixture of street and Polaroid inspired photography. The Gallery was pretty packed and it seemed like everyone was having a really good time. The show was curated by Dino Eli who did a fantastic job in pulling the idea and collection together. Also, the reason Jamie called the show “I’m having trouble cutting this ballerina” is because he was having trouble breaking (He uses the word cutting) the ballerina into triangles. After months of work, he solved the problem by breaking almost all the painting into triangles, which he had never done before. The show runs from September 30th to October 9th at Orchard Windows Gallery and it’s worth taking a look at because it’s something different. Orchard Windows Gallery is located on 37 Orchard Street NYC.

For more press please contact:

JHMNYC@GMAIL.COM

WWW.JAMIEMARTINEZ.NET

WWW.ORCHARDWINDOWSGALLERY.COM

Best regards,

Jamie Martinez
Jhmnyc@gmail.com
www.jamiemartinez.net
www.triangulism.com
www.artefuse.com

childof80s website

I really miss having a library nearby, not only for accessing books and other reference material that I’d prefer not to buy, but also to have a place to work with Internet access without going to a coffee shop (they do have coffee shops here, but not so many of them). The Internet makes a lot of information easily accessible at the click of the button, but most books are still unavailable online without some kind of purchase, and that content almost always comes with DRM protection.

So it really made me sad to hear that the library in my hometown of Troy, Michigan, will be shutting down in May 2011. As the Oakland Press reports : “Following Oakland County’s example, the Troy City Council approved a three-year budget…cutting more than $4 million in services this year from last year’s budget level.”

In addition to closing the library, the city is also closing the community center, museum, and nature center. However, the city is allocating “$1.1 million for Civic Center improvements.” The Civic Center was built about ten years ago, in the spot where the original Troy High School stood. It’s a slick structure that probably cost millions of dollars to build. But it’s mostly used for the gym and pool facilities, and as a senior gathering center.

This is a city, after all, that was rated #22 out of 100 of the “best places to live” by CNN Money in 2008. What kind of “best place to live” doesn’t have one of the most basic features of so-called “modern” civilization???

Apparently this all stems from four failed library millage proposals in 2010, as stated on the Troy Public Library website. According to a comment from Ronald R. Lambert, this was not the decision of the public alone. Someone ran commercials telling voters to turn down the proposals (which were already confusing in themselves). And the very idea may have arisen because the Troy City Council had other priorities.

As Lambert writes, “One of the great features of Library Millage Proposal 1 was that it provided for the library to be administered by an independent board, taking it out of the hands of City Council.” Millage Proposal 1 needed only 338 more “yes” votes to pass (15061 yes, 15736 no).

I used to spend a lot of time at the Troy Public Library as a kid, listening to stories, playing computer games (this was the early ’90s, before we had a personal computer at home), and checking out books and music with my library card. It’s kind of heartbreaking to think that kids in Troy will no longer be able to do that. All this gets blamed on the “economy,” but really it says something about our priorities as a society.

Throughout the ’90s I had to watch Troy fill up every single open space with condos, mega-churches, and shopping centers. Any place that endorses that sort of civic development, but cuts out the means for citizens to educate and inform themselves, is a place setting itself up for disaster.

You can find more info on Troy Public Library’s post “Frequently Asked Questions About the Library Closing.”

Ellison is open about his experiments with DMT (he blogged about it on MySpace) and mescaline, as well as lucid dreaming and out-of-body experiences (OOBEs). His song “1983,” from the 2006 album of the same name, brought him early attention for its use on Adult Swim’s promos (here’s a newer one from this January, containing a clip from Cosmogramma). He’s also praised for his style that’s reminiscent of classic video game sounds from the 8-bit NES era (and the video below even contains a video game-style segment).

This music video is for the song “MmmHmm (feat. Thundercat),” which, as you can see from the still shot, features the symbol of the Tao, more commonly known as “yin and yang” in the West. There’s no overt suggestion of meaning, but the symbol also suggests the “union of opposites”—an idea that is prevalent throughout all major mythologies and religions of the world. Plus, the characters in the video are a male Native American in headdress and a female Cannabis Sativa plant. The blending of all elements suggests an end of dualism between plant and animal, man and woman, cosmos and psyche, reality and video games (or virtual reality), etc.

So cheers to Flying Lotus for creating some of the most mind-expanding music (and music videos) of 2010! (By the way, his video for the song “Kill Your Co-Workers,” from the EP Pattern+Grid World, is equally stunning.)

Then the Internet created the potential for networked video games like the Sims and online worlds like Second Life. Some people spent more time (and even money) in those virtual realms than they did in “real life.” Obviously there’s an aspect of escapism at work in these cases–but in Second Life people were still sitting in front of a computer, not actually participating in a 3-dimensional simulation of the physical universe.

I know that more advanced virtual reality systems have existed for quite some time, but they’re always super-expensive–only available in catalogs for stores like the Sharper Image. In a way, it seemed like people just stopped caring about the concept itself, much in the same way that people have lost track of the Space Age feeling of cosmic exploration that persisted at least until the end of the 1980s.

But now I’m starting to think our ideas about virtual reality have been really rudimentary so far. When I imagine such a game or system, it inevitably looks and feels like “reality.” More specifically, the laws of physics would be set much as they are in the actual physical world–especially gravity. It’s not that people are against the concept of lower gravity; it’s more that we haven’t considered our other options.

Then last week I found a video game called “And Yet It Moves” (AYIM) for the Nintendo Wii. It’s a small WiiWare game (meaning it’s stored on the system hard drive), and yet it’s one of the most innovative gameplaying experiences I’ve seen on any system–even compared to the more advanced graphics of the PS3 and XBOX 360. AYIM is a 2.5-D game, meaning you move on a 2D surface, but there is texture in the background and foreground for visual effect. It’s a style first developed in games like Super Mario World, on the SNES system of the early ’90s. (I posted two videos of the AYIM gameplay below, synched with songs by Bibio and Toro Y Moi; I listened to them while I played and filmed.)

In the game, you control a character who can run and jump around a course. The first surprise is that, by pressing a button, you can freeze the motion. Then, by tilting the controller left and right (and keeping the button pressed), you rotate the screen around the character. Gravity always pulls down, so whenever you release the freeze button, the character falls in the direction his feet are pointing. With gravity a turned down a bit (so the jumps are sort of graceful), it makes for a pretty remarkable gaming experience!

And after a few days of playing this game, I’ve begun to rethink the possibilities of what virtual reality could actually be like. Can you imagine how it would feel to be fully immersed in an environment like the one in AYIM? We wouldn’t be able to take for granted which direction is “up” or “down,” if that was something we could change with a button (or better yet, with our mind). It reminded me of Escher’s drawings with staircases going in every direction (and even the film Labyrinth, in which David Bowie, playing the Gnome King, navigates such a maze of stairs).

I imagine they’ll have body suits with digital sensors, and some kind of mask with a peripheral screen. My point is that the kind of augmented reality we see on iPhone apps is only the beginning. Think of how awesome it would be to be able to walk through a field of bioluminescent flowers, and then turn gravity around, stand on a tree branch, and watch the flowers swaying on the ceiling!

Another thing I noticed while playing this game is that the anxiety I used to feel playing games where you can “die”–like the old school Super Mario Bros games–was absent from the AYIM experience. If you fall too great a distance in AYIM, your character explodes into little bits of paper (everything in the game is designed to look like ripped paper)–but you simply start again at the last checkpoint without even any jolting sound effects. No punishment whatsoever. Even if you fall into one of the “black holes” at the edge of the screen, it’s kind of fun to watch the character spin off into oblivion.

Usually we consider escapism a bad thing, and some kinds definitely cause more harm than good. But this is our world to build. I think the human mind has an unquenchable thirst for wonder and amazement. What we do with our spare time is indicative of our overall priorities, individually and collectively. The way I look at it, many people waste a good portion of their life energy between a job they hate and a bar “where everyone knows your name.” If I am productive every day, I think I deserve a reward of spending some time in a mental place that’s a little more extraordinary than my immediate physical surroundings.

The first thing I tell people about AYIM is that it’s like a dream (I guess it would be a lucid dream). A lot of our “entertainment” is more like a nightmare. Perhaps this is an example of how we’ve approached all technology up until this point. It’s not the technology in itself that is diminishing the quality of human life. It’s how we use the technology, as consumers and as a society.

I think video games are undergoing a gradual evolution with parallels to the current changes in human society. Currently war video games make the most money by far. It’s sad, but like Julian Assange commented in a recent Guardian Q&A, the first thing the Apache helicopter video demonstrates is that killing people is fun. Eventually we’re going to see that those war games are promoting territorial primate behavior and Stone Age mental patterns.

Personally I’d rather float around a dreamscape of trees and mossy background, as in AYIM. Or swing from neon plants and vines collecting pollen, like in the PS3 game Eden. Or soar around picturesque meadows and canyons from the POV of some flower petals (PS3′s Flower).

For the past few years I’ve limited my video game usage while I spent some necessary time reading and self-reflecting. But I can’t ignore that the possibilities are endless for the technologies of video games and virtual reality. I look forward to seeing what fantastic worlds we choose to create.

The song below is called “Cheaters,” from their debut full-length album 7 AM. The record runs short at 37 minutes, but the replay value is enormous. They take a simplistic approach on this video—a psychedelic visualizer to fit the uplifting song. Everybody needs some day-glo action once in a while!

Teengirl Fantasy will be accompanying Crystal Castles on a short tour this spring, which should make for some amazing shows!

I had originally intended to feature Oneohtrix Point Never in this post, a similar electronics-in-outer-space outfit. That one-man act has released at least five albums in the last couple of years. Both Emeralds and Oneohtrix remind me of the music they play in the Spaceship Earth ride at Epcot Center, which of course is a huge geodesic dome—a “bucky ball,” nicknamed after R. Buckminster Fuller, that under-appreciated visionary.

The space age sort of died in the late ’80s, when the alien paranoia starting building up in the X Files era. I think we’re entering a second space age, and this time we’ll be aiming much further out (and inward). Each human mind contains a universe. And the Earth is a space shuttle, constantly rotating on its axis and revolving around the sun. “We are all astronauts,” as Fuller said. I think Emeralds and Oneohtrix Point Never understand that idea (maybe just intuitively, not consciously). Some of their songs also remind me of Pink Floyd during the Dark Side of the Moon/Wish You Were Here/Animals era.

I started writing about music in 2005 because it’s always inspired me. But for the past 9 months I’ve been widening my topic coverage quite a bit. I’m still a voracious music listener, and lately I’m even more excited about audio/visual experimentation. Music videos have always been great for that! Plus, I figured everyone can thrive on some positive energy.

With that in mind, I’m planning five brief posts about the artists and albums from 2010 that I had on repeat over and over again, with an official music video from each album. More specifically, this series is about MIND EXPANSION—the kind of music that you’d want to have if you were leaving tomorrow on a tour of the galaxy. The styles and sub-genres that I consider to be at the forefront in that regard are dubsteb, ambient techno, experimental electronic, glo-fi, glitch hop, and a few others.

But enough about labels. The first entry in this mini-series is the album Lucky Shiner by Gold Panda, a solo artist from the UK (myspace.com/goldpanda). This was his first full-length album, after releasing a few exciting EPs over the past couple of years. The music video below is for the song “Snow and Taxis,” which is strange, because it contains neither snow nor taxis. However, it does contain a dreamlike stroll through a forest, which is at times phosphorescent and vibrational. It makes me miss living in a place where forests are more plentiful. (Sigh)

For more of my music writing history, please check out my old MusicEdge blog or my personal website. Stay tuned for more great music from 2010!

Many of us continue to use Facebook even as their privacy standards decline in favor of giving companies access to our preferences and background info—essentially our demographic statistics. As long as we have the option to increase privacy settings to the necessary level, we can keep using web services for all the obvious benefits.

However, now sites like Spokeo.com will be aggregating and offering our personal information to anyone who buys an account. That includes photos on sites like Facebook, videos on sites like YouTube, home value, credit score, income, age, sex, relationship info, occupation, hobbies, etc. And members can search by name, phone, email and username, so it’s pretty easy to find anyone.

Previously someone would have had to do a lot of digital legwork to get all this info, even if it wasn’t confidential—but not anymore. Ironically, Spokeo is partnered with ReputationDefender, a web privacy service! ReputationDefender also has paid services that help make your online info and content more private. Luckily you can request to remove your Spokeo listing for free. Here’s how:

1) Visit http://spokeo.com
2) Search for your name
3) Click on your listing in the table or the map
4) Copy the page URL once the info box appears
5) Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “privacy”
6) Paste the URL in the appropriate box, enter your email and the code, and click enter
7) Check your email to click or copy/past the confirmation link (They require this so that you don’t remove other people’s listings)

Hope this helps!

Kaliptus sent this to me on Facebook. I also posted it on my Evolver blog.

Why are we alive? The answers are many and none. It is up to us to define our own purpose, our own reasons, our own aims, goals, and responsibilities. Can you name 10 Reasons of Purpose for the Human Existence? If so please copy this, and type 10 reasons as a Note of your own. Life is important, don’t miss it

(I’m going to twist this a little bit and list 10 reasons I’ve discovered behind the purpose of my own existence. There will be some overlap with the reasons I see for mankind. I’ll explain as necessary.)

1. To procreate. In college I had settled into a purely Darwinian view of things and could see no other apparent meaning or purpose behind life than to create offspring, to pass on the DNA and keep life going. This was a rationalization based on the strength of the theory of natural selection, which I now see is only the beginning of our purpose.

2. To turn the dead order into chaos and then chaos into improved living order. To act as a human decomposer and reconstructor. To use the decay as fertilizer for starting a garden. To grow something sacred.

3. To learn, for the first time in the history of life on Earth going back billions of years, how to control all traits associated with power consciousness, including those connected with ego: pride, violence, anger, territorialism, authoritarianism, etc.

4. To hijack the entertainment factory, the prison for our metaphysical universe, and rebuild (or build for the first time) a truly healthy, technicolor, multidimensional public domain in a way that cannot be corrupted by power or law—as in, the kind of content seen on Tryptophanatic Netvision: http://vimeo.com/channels/tryptophanatic

5. To splatter minds on the wall with words, ideas, images, and sounds; in other words, to push people over their edge of comfort—over the boundary of what they consider “sane,” to hopefully show them that the scary, overwhelming, uncomfortable words, ideas, images and sounds are actually MUCH MORE SANE because they match the true facts found in the universe (especially the INNER universe), which brings me to #6.

6. To overhaul the Aristotelian thought system that is still prevalent 80 years after Korzybski’s general semantics should have inspired its downfall in the 1930s. To expand our conception of the universe from 3-dimensional to 4-dimensional (space and time do not exist independently), and upgrade all the obsolete thought systems: Newtonian physics, Euclidean geometry, Aristotelian logic, etc. This one also includes ending thought processes that foster self-deception.

7. To explain in clear, rational terms the concepts that we have thus far had to explain in poetic or metaphorical terms. Myths and fictions only help us up until the point when we can explain them with more precise ideas. That means increasing coherence, and reducing the noise—not stating as “fact” what works better in symbolic language.

8. To inspire an evolution in psychological awareness. We’ve been kept in the dark about the ideas of Freud, Jung, and others, because that information has been used by the public relations industry to manipulate our feelings—and, therefore, our habits in buying, voting, etc.—since World War I.

9. To convince the world to let technology work FOR us instead of AGAINST us. The fear of a war between Man & Machine is an instance of neophobia (unless we’re talking about subcutaneous microchips to track people, or some other dystopian nonsense like that). Human beings have many levels of consciousness aside from simple intelligence, but we’re not very good at rational decision making and problem solving. Computers (androids) could do this for us! In some areas they already do! Except what I’m suggesting would involve us staring at a screen for less time. Also, to rid the world of manual labor (wage slavery) and really any job that doesn’t encourage the full expression of the big Self trying to manifest itself in every individual human being.

10. To find peace—inner (jedi master status), outer small scale (a place that matches my inner idea of home), and outer global scale (healing Gaia).

Oneirisms is a “collective journal of metaphysical experience,” a place to post your dreams and visions and read what other people have experienced outside the physical dimensions of space and time. An oneirism is “dream-like experience,” and in posting dreams for all to see we provide the means for others to share in the ride.

By telling and reading the stories here, we are re-creating them; they “happen” in our minds, thus building consciousness loops of increased complexity. With any luck, we will become aware of how much of “real life” is actually metaphysical — that is, it happens or is co-created in our minds.

Psychoanalysis places great value on a prolonged examination of one’s own dreams. Whereas Freud saw dreams (and the subconscious in general) as reflecting mostly personal experience and repressed desires, Jung broadened the field of dream study with the concepts of the collective unconscious and the archetypes.

As Jung writes, “There are many symbols, however (among them the most important), that are not individual but collective in their nature and origin. …they are in fact ‘collective representations,’ emanating from primeval dreams and creative fantasies.” (Man and His Symbols)

And his colleague M.-L. von Franz: “Thus our dream life creates a meandering pattern in which individual strands or tendencies become visible, then vanish, then return again. If one watches this meandering pattern over a long period of time, one can observe a sort of hidden regulating or directing tendency at work, creating a slow, imperceptible process of psychic growth—the process of individuation.” (also from Symbols)

The idea for the site was also inspired by the book The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. In his book (originally published in 1948), Campbell used dreams from real people to provide perspective on myths from various cultures throughout human history.

Most of the dream stories in Hero came from Dreams: Their Meaning and Practical Application by Clement Wood, who wrote a syndicated newspaper column on dreams in the 1940s. Campbell writes, “In contrast to most of the dreams presented in the standard works on the subject, those in this popular introduction to Freud come from people not undergoing analysis. They are remarkably ingenuous.”

The site is a subsection of Supraterranean, an experimental magazine where people can self-publish any type of creative work. I (creator of both sites) became convinced that we as a species would benefit from learning more about the meaning of dreams, both our own and the dreams of other people. As Jung writes, “The general function of dreams is to try to restore our psychological balance by producing dream material that re-establishes, in a subtle way, the total psychic equilibrium.” It seems that our world could use some “psychic equilibrium” right about now.

Please join us on the adventure! Share your dream or vision on the Submissions page, or just poke around the site.

this video demonstrates the surveillance mixer. it uses three sources of image: two of the sources are live surveillance camera feeds, and the other is a short movie clip of your choice. below are download links for the mixer:

PC

Mac

click to enlarge flyer

http://gli.tc/

While reading the 40 pages of the First Book of Chronicles, I also: committed to something I know I can’t do; g-chatted with three people; answered three phones calls; answered several emails; made dumb comments on my personal and thumpMe Twitter accounts; kept a close eye on the blinking light on my Blackberry (I have messages, can’t check them); Facebook chatted with one person; Facebook stalked another; scanned a Google doc logging literary contests; listened to Pandora; scanned an article about the gubernatorial primary results; added 12 more ‘to-dos’ to my seven-page (not a joke) list; stubbed and blooded my toe; and watched four YouTube videos.

The first video, “Vlog 1: Attention Deficit Disorder,” speaks directly to the hummingbird flitting around my brain.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As does this one, which I got sucked into after deciding “Vlog 1: Attention Deficit Disorder” would be the only video in today’s post.

How to Clean a Bowling Ball

Click here to view the embedded video.

Head spinning yet?

It gets better. While reading, I also wondered why my parents have such a liberal door locking policy; when the health department will condemn my house; how I can add value to my blog; at what point my stomach muscles will turn to mush; the chance of my neighbor’s dog destroying my sanity; whether my blood is thinning; if my dentist is screwing me over; why rotten strawberries are in my refrigerator; how many of my friends are happy; if I want to honor my husband’s request to ban cucumber-melon body wash from the house; gum; which of three proposed life changes my husband and I will choose; if Gad is a biblical character or typo; the chances of the Royal Isle moose surviving tic infestations; how I’ll survive a weekend at the cottage without my computer; why the hell I have eight pair-less socks; whether I’ll have dreads by the time I schedule a haircut; why the majority of my friends are first born Leos; why I chose to pierce my own bellybutton (it was ripped out and then infected); read a press release titled “Freezing, preserving sperm vital to saving snot otter salamanders”; what pittance I’ll earn this month; and, most importantly, how long until I have a heart attack.

Some call this ADD. I call it 21C. 21^st Century. When I realized The First Book of Chronicles summarized about four previous books, I was pretty irritated. As I mentioned in “The Lord has Heard Your Whining” and “Touchdown!”, I find the details in the Bible painfully unnecessary. Or I did.

Monday’s bee sting distraction, today’s overstimulation and The First Book of Chronicles made me revisit focus, detail and the idea of doing a few things well instead of a lot of things poorly.

In the First Book of Chronicles, everyone is assigned ONE task. Those assigned to spice mixing ONLY mix spices. Those asked to strum a harp ONLY strum a harp. I am ONLY a writer, but I ONLY use 50 percent of my workweek to write.

I started the First Book of Chronicles with a bad attitude. Another summary? Are you kidding me? Then I asked the book to please offer a phrase to calm my racing heart. I may have glazed over 20 life lessons — maybe 100 — but because I was so busy g-chatting etc., everything was lost until the end, when King David assuaged Solomon’s anxiety concerning the construction of the Lord’s Temple. He said:

“Be confident and determined. Start the work and don’t let anything stop you.”

And that is the difference between “Please God, Short Version Only,” and “Please Gad, Shirt Venison Only.”

Stopping Point: Second Book of Chronicles

I planned to write a political piece today — “all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” wealthy parents shouldn’t gift stupid offspring political office, etc. — but I’m entirely focused on is this giant red welt on my shoulder so it’s time to explore the dreaded skin disease

The dreaded skin disease plaguing the Bible is leprosy (now known as the less threatening Hansen’s disease). It was used as a fear agent to prevent people from sinning. Many got it and those who didn’t feared it. In the Second Book of Kings, it appears that most kings feared dreaded skin disease above all else, including being burned alive.

Interestingly, leprosy isn’t a big deal. It isn’t very contagious and about 95 percent of humans are immune to it. I find this fascinating because even though we’ve released leprosy as a fear agent, we continue reacting to health-related fear agents handed to us by governing bodies . Remember the West Nile panic? Only 1,263 U.S. deaths. Dengue fever?  53 total deaths, 0 in the U.S. Avian flu? 298 total deaths, 0 in the U.S. SARs?  774 total deaths, 0 in the U.S. Swine flu? 11,700 U.S. deaths.* Comparatively, swine flu looks like a big deal but according to this NYT article, “In a typical year, 36,000 people die of seasonal flu, the C.D.C. estimates.” Hm.

*These numbers are based on the most recent data I could find. They may have changed.

Until 1873, people feared leprosy because they thought it was caused by sin, not bacteria. They lacked medical resources regarding the dreaded skin disease. We have plenty of medical resources yet we freak out when things like SARS hit the news.

This takes me back to the red mass on my shoulder. When I woke up this morning I wasn’t thinking about the oil spill in Kalamazoo, the national deficit or the hobos I bike past every morning. I was thinking about my own dreaded skin diseases, ie., the bee sting on my shoulder.

The incident occurred last Friday. I was biking, the bee was flying and when we collided, I squealed, nearly fell of my bike, exercised one of my favorite curse words and scared the shit out of a cute little family.

Unfortunately, I do not have this on film. However, I found a fantastic fill-in that very aptly represents my experience. Youtube was moving a bit slowly this morning, but this video is so worth it. Promise

“Bee Sting Bike Ride”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thankfully, I am not suffering from the dreaded skin disease. I’m overreacting to a very painful bee sting that is now a softball sized mess. It’s itchy. It hurts and I’m pretty sure it’s the reason I feel nauseous. I used to just be a complainer, but thanks to WebMD and unlimited access to medical information, I’m now a hypochondriac.

I suppose this is no different than the leprosy fallacy. With or without access to information, humans spend a great deal of time focusing on and worrying about the wrong things. I’m more likely to get hit by a car on my way home than die by bee sting. But, I’m focused on the sting. I even took a photo of it. Actually, I took three.

According to WebMD and my personal sting timeline, there’s a slight chance this sucker could put me in the hospital by Friday and, if that hypothetical visit goes badly, I could die. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to text my husband and let him know he could be a widower by Saturday.

Stopping Point: The First Book of Chronicles

People don’t like to use the word famous as it relates to their desired legacy. They prefer to be “remembered” yet for most, finite remembrance by a universally insignificant amount of people (nuclear family for most, extended for a few), is almost tragic.

We don’t know what the afterlife — if there is such a thing — will bring, but fame is a possibility. Let’s say you’re 60 and decide you’ve got about 20 years left to “make a mark.” Let’s say that so far your only “mark” is a one-sentence quote in an archived local paper. Wouldn’t the very idea of having an unlimited amount of time to become “known” among many be very compelling? What if even after all that time, your legacy was whittled down to a paragraph? Would you still do it?

The First Book of Kings discusses the life and conquests of Israel’s most influential kings including Solomon, who is known for being “richer and wiser than any other king” one “the whole world wanted to come and listen to.” I suppose he was sort of like Oprah. Even though he was considered a “great,” when he dies only a small paragraph is devoted to his life. The same goes for the other kings mentioned in this section including those rarely recognized, such as Zimri.

This pattern continues today. The 2010 TIME 100 list of  the people who have most affected our world includes some household names — Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Ben Stiller (he is listed as a “hero”), Oprah, Lady Gaga, Conan O’Brien and Prince — but how long will their fame last? Certainly longer than Louise Brooks and Gustav Mahler, but not by much. If they’re lucky, their lives will collapse to a paragraph in a mass-produced high school history book. But everyone wants a paragraph and many will look to a fantastical afterlife to get it.

Many times people say they don’t want to be famous. They’d rather “influence” others. I believe many do, but influence is often a smokescreen for fame. Influence in its true sense, which I see as an altruistic means to help others, isn’t flashy, not even when it touches fame.

How many of these people could you talk about (intelligently) for more than five minutes?

Zaha Hadid, Elizabeth Warren, Douglas Schwartzentruber and Larry Kwak, Michael Pollan, Atul Gawande, Jaron Lanier, Victor Pinchuk, Lee Kuan Yew, Deborah Gist, Kathleen Merrigan, Steve Jobs, Tim White, Lisa Jackson, Elon Musk, Edna Foa, Jaime Lerner, Paul Volcker, Amy Smith, Matt Berg, Amartya Sen, Michael Sherraden, Sanjit ‘Bunker’ Roy, Tim Westergren, David Boies and Theodore Olson and Sonia Sotomayor.

These people happen to be the 25 “thinkers” on the 2010 TIME 100 list, which gives them more exposure than most other 21^st Century “thinkers.” But they’re still not household names because influence isn’t sexy, fame is.

Perhaps if we let go of fame and focused on influence purely as a means to improve the lives of others, the number of people returning to church as a means to get one last shot at fame, would vastly diminish. If you’re goal really is to influence, there’s no need to cling to eternity. If you’re goal is fame, and you’re not Lady Gaga, hold on tight and don’t miss Sunday mass.

Stopping Point: Second Book of Kings

True to this project, I did attempt to experience religion as defined by the Bible. While tooling around my hometown I tried to give confession at St. Joseph’s church, an edifice I’ve always admired but never entered — or so I thought.

When my best friend and I walked into St. Joe’s, she reminded me that we’d fist visited St. Joe’s when we were seven. It was our first solo trip to Old Town Ft. Collins, an independent milestone I’d been seeking for months. Our only instructions: Don’t talk to strangers; look both ways when crossing; get home by dinner.

Our parents didn’t say a word about throwing a handful of black raspberry candy into the holy water at St. Joe’s. I thought it was simply hysterical when the water turned black, but my friend was mortified and dragged me out of the church.

Twenty-one years later I decided to confess, but when I approached St. Joe’s confessional I was met with a sign that said: “Confessional Hours 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.” I couldn’t stick around for varying reasons (namely Sunshine, Ranger and Skinny Dip) nor could I attend the Sunday service (again, Sunshine, Ranger and Skinny Dip), but today I called the church asking for some sort of guidance regarding my impulse. Explaining my quest to the church secretary was a bit difficult. She was polite, but after my explanation she said, “You want to turn the holy water black?”

“No, I already did that. I would like to talk to someone about the implications of turning holy water black. Is that a sin and can I be forgiven?”

My call was not returned. A little Internet research suggests individuals have been using holy water for black satanic rituals. I can assure you that’s not what I intended with my black water however, I doubt I’ll be “forgiven” for this tiny infraction. Unlike God’s revered David, I am not cruel, have not disregarded half of the 10 Commandments (I’ve only hit four), murdered anyone or, most importantly, accepted God as my savior.

Like David I had a little brain fart regarding my indiscretion, but God likes David because David likes God so it’s OK for him sweep it under the rug. After God forgives David, David sings a little ditty completely void of his blunders. He says:

“The Lord rewards me because I do what is right; he blesses me because I am innocent.

I have obeyed the law of the Lord; I have not turned away from my God.

I have observed all his laws; I have not disobeyed his commands.

He knows that I am faultless, that I have kept myself from doing wrong.

And so he rewards me because I do what is right, because he knows I am innocent.”

It seems that sins are insignificant as long as the sinner has accepted God and confessed in a church. If I had accepted God and waited until 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. to confess my 21-year-old sin rather than drinking and hiking in the mountains, would my black berries go unnoticed?

I know “accepting God” takes more than 15 minutes, but I can’t understand these general principles. Please explain this to me.

Stopping Point: The First Book of Kings

I always thought God despised homosexuality, but he doesn’t. In fact, in the story of David, he chooses homosexuality over heterosexuality. Earlier in the Bible God directly addresses his distain for sodomy but in the Book of Samuel, he indirectly addresses homosexuality and he approves. I think this giant elephant is often missed because humans, particularly Americans, ignore that which they disapprove of as long as it’s not thrown their face. Think politics, family, work, environment, happiness, economy. Religion.

Here’s a quick rundown. David is the attractive guy who kills the big ugly mass that is Goliath. God loves him, but he’s not too thrilled with King Saul. Saul’s son, Jonathan is “deeply attracted to David and came to love him as much as he loved himself.” Jonathan protects David from Saul, who hates David as fervently as Jonathan loves him. Eventually the J and D go into a field and promise to love each other. After the field, Jonathan returns to Saul who beats him for not being “ritually pure.” Ritually pure refers to many things — animals, food, what have you — but it plays a major role in sexual relationships. Saul gets pissed and beats Jonathan for being rebellious.

Then J and D rendezvous in the field once more only this time they’re joined by a young boy and his arrows. Jonathan saves David once again and “…both he (David) and Jonathan were crying as they kissed each other; David’s grief was even greater than Jonathan’s.” Then they make a “secret promise of friendship to each other.”

OK heterosexual men. How many of you have made a secret promise of a friendship with another man and then cried and kissed him in joy?

When David goes to a priest for some bread, the priest tells him he “…can have it if your men haven’t had any sexual relations recently,” but he doesn’t specify the nature of the relationships. There are several references to David “hiding,” “spears” and other homosexual undertones. David also tries to make peace with Saul by bringing him 200 enemy foreskins. That’s not gay. It’s just gross.

In the end, the Lord has to pick Saul or David. He has to “…judge which one of us (Saul or David) is wrong!”

Guess what? He picks David.

If you want a more detailed rundown, check out this video. It was produced by the “The Gay Bible Project, which has its own agenda but I couldn’t find a video addressing this topic on GodTube — if you don’t talk about it, it doesn’t exist.

The Gay Bible Project: David and Jonathan

Click here to view the embedded video.

In this portion of the Bible, Saul battles with his own homosexual tendencies and is made miserable by suppression. Perhaps this is the real lesson here — Rejecting ones self can only result in a lifetime of torture. Perhaps.

Of course this is all open to interpretation.

Stopping Point: Second Book of Samuel

Click here to view the embedded video.

The 2.4Ghz project uses a wireless video receiver to hack into wireless surveillance cameras. This device (which is now part of consumers popular products), can be used for wireless surveillance cameras, but it can also be used for parents to monitor their children. Such systems are becoming more popular as they get cheaper.

But what most users of those devices don’t realise is that they are broadcasting the signal.

This project (in progress) has several layers. Initially, I have been walking around different towns in Europe to collect and record footage received with the device (see below for the collected movies).

The second part of the project (also in progress) consists of placing the device in the street to reveal the presence of the cameras and to make obvious the fact that anyone can receive those signals.

The third stage of the project consists of a series of workshops: 2.4GHz Workshop, where participants are invited to explore the CCTV wireless networks of their city by searching and recording 2.4GHz surveillance video signals. The recorded material is then compiled into a movie of the event.

More about the 2.4GHz Workshops here

this is a free video mixer that i am working on. the video above shows a demonstration of me using it. it’s still in development, but a fully functional version can be downloaded below. after you unzip the file, open the readme text for easy installation guide.

macintosh users: download

PC users: download

email questions, comments, requests, suggestions to jakerendell@yahoo.com

enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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link below is an audio file (opens a quicktime page) taken from the internet archive.

Harry Smith lecture on the Native American cosmos, July, 1990. – Smith, Harry

http://www.artofthetitle.com/2009/07/27/tetro/

http://www.traileraddict.com/clip/tetro/opening-sequence

http://motionspire.com/?tag=Title+Sequence

topographic breasts (image processing with OsiriX)

3D brains (image processing with OsiriX)

_________________image on the right shows 2D view of lumbar spine_______>>>

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informations:

http://www.rsna.org/technology/dicom/intro/index.cfm

http://www.rsna.org/Technology/DICOM/index.cfm

http://medical.nema.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicom

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dicom samples:

http://www.barre.nom.fr/medical/samples/

http://www.aycan.de/main/lp/sample_dicom_images.html

* * * there are many more out there but they aren’t easy to find. the list on the bottom of the wiki page is a good place to start * * *

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open source imaging softwares:

http://www.osirix-viewer.com/ >>>>>>> THIS IS A RED HOT SOFTWARE ! <<<<<<<<<<

http://www.idoimaging.com/index.shtml

Even though I don’t want to be a Jew and am looking forward to the New Testament, I’ve enjoyed several pieces of the Old including the Book of Judges. The majority of the Book of Judges is about killing, taking land and killing. Naturally, I can’t remember the names of the murderers, lost tribes or pillaged lands, but I remember the means to every end. They include a left handed stabbing with a double edged sword; an enthusiastic hammering of a tent peg into a skull; an oxgoad beating; a natural beating via thorns and briars; lighting people on fire (this happens a lot); death by flaming fox tails; dead donkey jawbone bashings and collapsing structures for the sole purpose of crushing skulls.

The Book of Judges also introduces us to our first sociopath, a wayward Levite who makes up for selfishly murdering his wife by generously distributing her chopped up body to each of the 12 Tribes of Israel. I believe Judges records our first gang rape, but I’d have to go back and check because something similar may have happened last time homosexuality was discussed. I have major issues with this and am logging all violence related to homosexual activity.

The Levite is fascinating, but I’m awestruck by Samson, who ripped a lion apart with his hands and then ate honey from its innards; and indebted to Deborah, who created a two page “song” that reads like a text book, proving that people have been subjected to musical train wrecks since the beginning of civilization. In other words, I finally found a song less palatable than “Money Can’t Buy You Class,” by New York real housewife Countess Luann de Lesseps.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is entirely unrelated but I came across extraordinary hat while searching for photos of Jerusalem. If anyone wants to send me one, I promise to search eBay for a matching oxgoad and wear both to work.

Stopping Point: Samuel

The black and white rhetoric of the most vociferous religious entities in our culture is absolutely the No. 1 reason I passed on religion for the first 20 years of my life. I came to understand faith and spirituality by cautiously moving about their lucid parameters, but back away from both as soon as they fall into the fold of religion as defined by institution.

I am not alone. I’ve spoken with several friends and acquaintances about this Bible quest. Surprisingly (at least to me), all of them spent time in religious institutions when they were children and all of them have faith in a higher being. Interestingly, most of them are removed from and bothered by the emptying institutions hell bent on preaching archaic extremes.

I realize the squeaky wheel grabs the camera, particularly as it pertains to religion and politics, but the in-betweens — the Objectivist Party, the average Joe (Joe the Plumber excluded) — remain quiet. They have no interest in outshouting the Billy Graham’s of the world. They’re not extremists. They don’t see in absolutes. They just want to do and be.

At the end of Deuteronomy, Moses recites the following:

“Today I am giving you a choice between good and evil, between life and death. If you obey the commands of the Lord your God, which I give you today if you love him, obey him, and keep all his laws, then you will prosper and become a nation of many people…

“But if you disobey and refuse to listen, and are led away to worship other gods, you will be destroyed …”

“I am now giving you the choice between life and death, between God’s blessing and God’s curse, and I call heaven and earth to witness the choice you make.”

One or the other. No middle. This is absurd. Parents often pretend to operate in absolutes, but how many really do it? What about the courts? Education? Relationships?

The Lord threatens termination of entire nations incapable or uninterested in choosing his life. By not choosing life (as defined by his terms), we choose death. So how the hell has any HUMAN population survived?

I’ve read and noted some “exceptions” to these many rules, but so far this text is a boomerang of extremes.

When does the loud extremist make room for a quiet, middle of the road being capable of measuring the Lord’s extremes and making human life not only possible, but enjoyable?

Jesus?

Stopping Point: Book of Judges

I suppose that’s what I get for cheating, which brings me to tenacity. Do I have enough to survive the next three weeks without any substances? I think so, but we’ll see. My reward for making it is a trip to Colorado. If I fail, I’ll still go to Colorado, completely annihilating cause-effect as motivation. Cause-effect aside, this ban on substances is self-inflicted and if I don’t have enough tenacity to follow through on my own impositions, it’s going to be ride. For the record, I view “substance” and “fun” as synonyms so feel free to sympathize.

Deuteronomy clarified a lot of references I’ve never understood. I’ll get to that later. Since people pick and choose the pieces of the Bible they’d like to follow, I choose the parenthesis, which makes an epic cameo in this section.

Example:

“… (A mighty race of giants called the Emim used to live in Ar. They were as tall as the Anakim, another race of giants. Like the Anakim they were also known as Rephaim; but he Moabites called them Emim. The Horites used to live in Edom, but the descendents of Esau chased them out, destroyed their nation, and settled there themselves, just as the Israelites later chased their enemies out of the land that the Lord gave them.)”

So this substance thing is a way to (hopefully) rid myself of a really long stint of insomnia. So far the worst part is caffeine withdrawal, which really sucks. (According to the 20 websites I visited during my ‘caffeine withdrawal symptoms’ search, I’m experiencing all side effects including headache, sleep deprivation, irritability, fatigue and difficulty concentrating. In other good news, a 2004 CNN report, “A new study that analyzes some 170 years’ worth of research concludes that caffeine withdrawal is very real — producing enough physical symptoms and a disruption in daily life to classify it as a psychiatric disorder. Researchers are suggesting that caffeine withdrawal should be included in the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), considered the bible of mental disorders.” As if I need another.)

(On a positive note, there was a 12-hour period in May where I was hell bent on obtaining a heroin addiction and then writing about the withdrawal. This experience has taught me that no, I don’t want to do that.)

It’s very difficult to read 30-40 pages of the Bible twice a week especially when lack of concentration, sleep deprivation and irritability are thrown into the mix however, I’m still plowing through and as usual, I always end up enjoying the reading.

For a non-believer, Deuteronomy is very informative. This is moronic, but I’d never heard of the “great commandment,” understood the whole chosen people bit, really known why Jewish people stay away from the pig (I’ve feigned this information for years), why some believers want women to wear skirts and men pants, the consequences of having sex before marriage (still digesting this one) and the whole virginal blood on the sheets thing (sick).

It’s very fitting that my quest for purity coincides with my goal to read the Bible by Christmas. I’ll just go a day at a time, a lesson I believe is taught in the Bible and substance abuse groups. Tenacity.

Stopping Point: Deuteronomy, Section 28 (I never committed to reading this in one sitting. Conscious cleared.)

Generally when I see the world in varying shades of shit I do the following:

1. Run until I feel like vomiting (can’t do it, foot is still a mess)
2. Punch or kick something (nice little mix of German/Italian blood, already did it, didn’t work)
3. Shutdown (did it, obviously opening back up)

Today we’re going thumper style. I’m reading Numbers. We’ll see how far I get. Looks pretty dense, but fitting since it’s about “people who were often discouraged and afraid in the face of hardship.” Substitute anger for fear and there I am.

I’m three pages in and I already feel better as the Lord has just affirmed that first borns are the best. He chose them as his No. 1s. They got things started and then the second/third borns what have you, took over. Typical.

The details in this chapter — numbers, ages, rituals — are a bit annoying, but the rhythm of reading something and letting it pass through one eye and out the other without any pause for thought is rather soothing. I suppose this zombie-like repetition has modern appeal as it compliments much of 21st Century fiction. (It should be noted that I loved Nora Roberts when I was in fifth grade. She gives some  great tutorials about the synchronicity of bells and whistles.)

I’ve reached the “Lord Sends Quails” section. The correlating drawing of people chasing quail is amazing. I can’t find this drawing on the web, but this little nugget relates to one of my favorite national political headlines of 2006, the year Mr. Dick Cheney shot one of his supporters while quail hunting.

Oddly enough, the rest of the piece is about whiners and how they should stop pissing and moaning. Oh so appropriate given my state of mind. The people spent so much time complaining that God gave Moses a complaint department of 70 people and devoted two sections — “The People Complain” and “The Lord Punishes the People for Complaining” — to the matter. Punishments for complaints include death, 40 years of suffering, abandonment in the wilderness, fire, being swallowed by the earth, plague and attack by poisonous snakes.

Message received.

Did the turn-to-the-Bible experiment work? I suppose. The coincidence is rather interesting and did improve my mood. Maybe in a few weeks I’ll give this another try and measure results.

Question. I’m writing this from the Michigan State University (MSU) library. Do men really use the stacks to relieve certain tensions? That’s just fantastic.

Stopping Point: Numbers 27

I’m not particularly adept at following rules be they legal, moral or social. I follow the ones I find most beneficial — wearing a seatbelt (if I’m in the front seat), applying sunblock (after succumbing to summer’s inaugural burn), taking care of those I love (but only if they’re not pissing me off), keeping my hands off the property of others (a few mishaps here) and respecting the lives of others (see section 1A for a complete library of addendums). I obey rules and laws sidelined with consequences I prefer to avoid  — paying taxes (um…), voting (soon to join the do-not-follow section) and killing (of large animals). And I disregard the ridiculous — respecting misplaced stop signs (when cops are not around), succumbing to obligation (unless it includes intoxication) and expressing kindness toward strangers (see section 1B for specifics).

My rules concerning rules are only consistent in devotion to exception. This, in effect, is Leviticus, a section of the Bible known for the “love your neighbor as you love yourself” commandment, one that gets lost in the quagmire of God’s laws, which are so confusing it’s nearly impossible to decipher right from wrong. (For the record, it took 30 pages before I noticed it’s “Le-vi-ti-cus,” not “Le-vic-tus.”)

Thankfully, a multitude of exceptions are wrapped up in these laws. I thrive on exceptions and therefore can place the following in my patchwork list of acceptable rules.

1. Laws Concerning Skin Diseases: Yes, I agree that skin diseases are disgusting and an individual afflicted by such a disease should be examined and, if necessary, quarantined. Unless of course the affliction is ringworm and it happens to be on my leg.

2. Laws Concerning Mildew: Also disgusting, but wonderful if covered by insurance.

3. Unclean Bodily Discharges: Agree with the concept, not the fluids.

4. Laws of Holiness and Justice: This is generally good stuff — no cheating, no lying, no breaking promises, no holding grudges — and a perfect demonstration of the value of exception. Have you ever gone a week without cheating, lying, breaking a promise or holding a grudge? I have, but only if white lies and cheating at board games are classified as exceptions to the cheating and lying portion of holiness and justice.

5. Eye for an eye. Love it, but prefer the world follow it after I’m safely housed in a concrete bunker in a land far, far away.

The way in which God designs these rules, regulations and punishments is ingenious because complexity allows for confusion, which encourages interpretation, which results in justification. Some people really blow the justification component. Justifying the allegedkilling of a strawberry stripper as a means to appease a bitch-slapping wife is not exactly the best logic.

That being said, justification is generally used to excuse blurry and harmless offenses. If God had created black and white rules punishable by the same consequence, we’d be screwed. If the punishment were death, we would cease to exist. If the punishment were guilt and shame, we would cease to prosper.

Humans are imperfect and incapable of linearly following legal, moral and social laws. If God’s laws didn’t allow for exception and interpretation we would not only hate ourselves for consistently failing, we would, by default, hate our neighbor. It is simply impossible to fully love your neighbor if you hate yourself.

Cheers to God’s exceptions.

Stopping Point: Should be Numbers, but will be Leviticus Part II — “That’s What She Said”

My boy & colleague from SVA (School of Visual Arts) MFA Computer Art Dept, Maurice Lee, whom also worked on some of the music tracks for my animation FALX,.. releases the illest album… for real~!!!

You can download all the tracks for free. Be sure to check him out!
http://jiggz.net/

MTV’s Ultimate Parkour Challenge has got to be the dopest show MTV has hosted in a long time. I recently got commissioned to create a campaign animation for WFPF and discovered the world of Parkour.

Parkour (sometimes also abbreviated to PK), also parcours, or l’art du déplacement [1] (English: the art of displacement) is the physical discipline of training to overcome any obstacle within one’s path by adapting one’s movements to the environment.[2] It is a non-competitive, physical discipline of French origin in which participants run along a route, attempting to negotiate obstacles in the most efficient way possible. Skills such as jumping and climbing, or the more specific parkour moves are employed. The object of parkour is to get from one place to another using only the human body and the objects in the environment. The obstacles can be anything in one’s environment, but parkour is often seen practiced in urban areas because of the many suitable public structures available such as buildings and rails.

As soon as I get the approval from WFPF to spread the animation I made, I will post it here

http://www.mtv.com/shows/parkour/series.jhtml

In the mean time be sure to check out the full MTV’s Ultimate Parkour Challenge episodes by clicking on the link above.

In-Joy!