Photo Storytelling

When it's all said and done...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:55:45 GMT

Loneliness makes people do foolish, wasteful things.

O, The Terror

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 08:09:46 GMT

Letters to a Young Poet - Rainer Maria Rilke

But fear of the inexplicable has not alone impoverished the existence of the individual; the relationship between one human being and another has also been cramped by it, as though it had been lifted out of the riverbed of endless possibilities and set down in a fallow spot on the bank, to which nothing happens. For it is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope.

But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation to another as something alive and will himself draw exhaustively from his own existence. For if we think of this existence of the individual as a larger or smaller room, it appears evident that most people learn to know only a corner of their room, a place by the window, a strip of floor on which they walk up and down. Thus they have a certain security. And yet that dangerous insecurity is so much more human which drives the prisoners in Poe's stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their abode.

Everything in between

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 03:32:58 GMT

Visiting some fiends up north (non-family).
I'm becoming less and less of the family-oriented holiday woman.

As for the sentiment this holiday warrants:
I'm thankful every single day, every single minute.
From the heights of lucid, beautific moments to the abrupt pitfalls into the bleak terrain and everything else in between.
Especially everything else in between.

I suspect you exquisite creatures know what I may be talking about.

If not, it's time to take our bi-polar meds.

The Kurosawa Champagne - Derrick Brown

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:14:24 GMT

It's hard to sell me on love poems, but this one....

...absolutely, utterly delectable.

Tonight
your body shook,
hurling your nightmares
back to Cambodia.

Your nightgown wisped off
into Ursula Minor.

I was left here on earth feeling alone,
paranoid about the Rapture.

Tonight
I think it is safe to say we drank too much.
Must I apologize for the volume in my slobber?
Must I apologize for the best dance moves ever?
No.

Booze is my tuition to clown college.

I swung at your purse.
It was staring at me.

We swerved home on black laughter.
bleeding from forgettable boxing.

I asked you to sleep in the shape of a trench
so that I might know shelter.

I drew the word surrender in the mist of your breath,
waving a white sheet around your body.

‘Dear, in the morning let me put on your make-up for you.
I’ll be loading your gems with mascara
then I’ll tell you the truth…’

I watched black ropes and tears ramble down your face.

Lady war paint.

A squad of tiny men rappels down those snaking lines
and you say;
“Thank you for releasing all those fuckers from my life.”

You have a daily pill case.
There are no pills inside.
It holds the ashes of people who died

…the moment they saw you.

The cinema we built was to play the greats
but we could never afford the power
so in the dark cinema
you painted pictures of Kurosawa.

I just stared at you like Orson Welles,
getting fat off your style.

You are a movie that keeps exploding.
You are Dante’s fireplace.

We were so broke,
I’d pour tap water into your mouth,
burp against your lips
so you could have champagne.

You love champagne.

Sparring in the candlelight.

Listen—
the mathematical equivalent of a woman’s beauty
is directly relational
to the amount or degree
other women hate her.

You, dear, are hated.

Your boots are a soundtrack to adultery.
Thank God your feet fall in the rhythm of loyalty.

If this kills me,
slice me julienne
uncurl my veins
and fashion yourself a noose
so I can hold you
once more.

"The moon is alive."

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 13:16:19 GMT

Man: "Can I get a hug?"

Me [after a beat of hesitation]: "Sure."

[Commence a genuine, albeit slightly awkward, hug]

Man: "It's just how I thought it would be."

Me: "Oh? And what would that be?"

Man: "Devastating."

Me [throwing him wary look]: "That probably means you need to get out and interact with humanity more. Devastation galore there."

Man: "Oh, you mean to tell me you haven't had a 'Devastating Hug' before?"

Me: "What, precisely, is a 'Devastating Hug'?"

Man: "A hug with someone who makes the knees weak."

Me [laughs, despite his serious look]

Man: "Do you have someone you would like to hug who would make your knees weak?"

Me [considering for a moment]: "Yes, I do."

Man: "Who?"

Me: "The moon."

Man [a perplexed expression befalls his face]: "The moon?? Why the moon?"

Me: "Because we've just discovered it is alive. What deserves more of a big hug than discovering life on something that was previously thought to be pretty much lifeless?"

Man: "The moon is alive?"

Me: "Guess you haven't heard yet. Water was found in a crater on the south pole of the moon. Four hundred degrees below freezing temperature."

Man: "Wow."

Me: "Indeed."

Man: "That's awesome to hear but I meant for my question to be about who - as in a person."

Me: "I know. But the moon is so much better."

Man: "So....anyone?"

Me [pausing]: "Fictional/fabricated characters."

Meme while the mind brews

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:14:13 GMT

Really, I expect only one person to respond to this.
I would've made an exclusive filter for the occasional meme but, alas, I seemed to have used up all thirty custom friend(s) filters.

Kind of says something about me, doesn't it?

As you are, everyone.

1::Give me a nickname and explain why you picked it.
2:: Am I lovable?
3:: How long have you known me?
4:: When and how did we first meet?
5:: What was your first impression?
6:: Do you still think that way about me now?
7:: What do you think my weakness is?
8:: Do you think I'll get married?
9:: What makes me happy?
10:: What makes me sad?
11:: What reminds you of me?
12:: If you could give me anything what would it be?
13:: How well do you know me?
14:: When's the last time you saw me?
15:: Ever wanted to tell me something but couldn't?
16:: Do you think I could kill someone?
17:: Describe me in one word.
18:: Do you think our friendship is getting stronger, weaker, or staying the same?
19:: Do you feel that you could talk to me about anything and I would listen?
20:: QUESTION REDACTED

Specific Curiosity

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:50:33 GMT

What are your thoughts on threesomes?

October 20, 2002

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:13:11 GMT

It's been seven years.

Steamy Exchange

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:00:58 GMT

New Conception of Human Ecology

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:04:47 GMT

This speech has possibly changed my life for the better.

AMAZING Music Video

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:53:28 GMT

The creative ingenuity and irreverent charm/whimsy of this video floors me.
I like the song too.

Link to how the video was made interview is on its YouTube page.

Brief Photographic Chronicle of Summer 2009

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:23:16 GMT

I've been absent in the photography scene for quite a while.
For a multitude of reasons and for reasons unknown.

That said, the following images are fortuitous accidents.
Which is, of course, how summer should be captured.
Or, rather, how it should capture you.

As always, soundtrack is provided for your viewing.

Free Toad the Wet Sprocket concert.

"Your Bright Future" Exhibit featuring contemporary/post-modern Korean artists. I enjoyed it thoroughly; as it allowed me to be exposed to a part of my culture that I've never really been previously acquainted with. More, please. I hope to catch the Asian photography exhibit that will be opening in SF MoMA this fall.

The environment suffers for the sake of art. Postmodern art, at that. This fence was set up as part of the exhibit. Random spectators and passerbys were asked to decorate the fence with whatever artistic expression (or possession) they had at that moment. People basically turned it into a junk wall. I suppose it was a statement of our wasteful indulgence in mass consumption - as that seems to be the staple criticism of the modern, capitalistic society. My contribution to the junk fence was a written note that read, "Try to aim for something more biodegradable next time."

But I did like this guy.

This little diva has become a prominent person in my life.

The Mars Volta

Inside The Wiltern where The National performed.
Their live concerts never fails in blowing my mind.

The Kodak Theater, where, as one person put it, "horrible people go to die." I was attending the Wine and Jazz festival. You get two glasses of wine, a box of crackers and cheese for $10. Your money is donated to Angel Charity for Children, an organization that combats global hunger afflicting children.

Only in L.A. can you see Disney characters on a nightly basis.

Shot through a telescope.

I love the motion and stillness in this photo.

I desperately want those jellyfish lighting fixtures.

One of my favorite events I got to attend this summer was L.A.'s First Annual Tanabata Festival in Little Tokyo.

A brief description via Wikipedia:
Tanabata (七夕, tanabata?, meaning "Evening of the seventh") is a Japanese star festival, derived from the Chinese star festival, Qi Xi (七夕 "The Night of Sevens")．

It celebrates the meeting of Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair). The Milky Way, a river made from stars that crosses the sky, separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar. The celebration is held at night, once the stars come out.
Read more about it here.

The married couple we met up to attend this festival with happened to meet for the very first time on the day of the Tanabata.

It is customary to hang decorative looms that contain your personal wishes. Some were very large and elaborate. All of them were beautiful. I was quite moved and enchanted.

Fin

Where to begin?

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 11:12:53 GMT

While trying to demurely take photographs of urban festivities, I suppose whispering, "You are divine," to a complete stranger would cast an unfavorable and creepy impression.

"Hi, how you doing?" is so gosh darn unimaginative and boring though.

If any of you have a gobsmack-worthy pick-up line that you employ with maximum results, now is the time to spill the beans and help this poor lecher out.

I blame Ms. Hyde on global warming

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:58:41 GMT

What is it about hot weather that turns me into a closeted, sexual predator?

Hot weather deserves a hot poem

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 01:39:20 GMT

For Desire | Kim Addonizio

Give me the strongest cheese, the one that stinks best;
and I want the good wine, the swirl in crystal
surrendering the bruised scent of blackberries,
or cherries, the rich spurt in the back
of the throat, the holding it there before swallowing.
Give me the lover who yanks open the door
of his house and presses me to the wall
in the dim hallway, and keeps me there until I'm drenched
and shaking, whose kisses arrive by the boatload
and begin their delicious diaspora
through the cities and small towns of my body.
To hell with the saints, with martyrs
of my childhood meant to instruct me
in the power of endurance and faith,
to hell with the next world and its pallid angels
swooning and sighing like Victorian girls.
I want this world. I want to walk into
the ocean and feel it trying to drag me along
like I'm nothing but a broken bit of scratched glass,
and I want to resist it. I want to go
staggering and flailing my way
through the bars and back rooms,
through the gleaming hotels and weedy
lots of abandoned sunflowers and the parks
where dogs are let off their leashes
in spite of the signs, where they sniff each
other and roll together in the grass, I want to
lie down somewhere and suffer for love until
it nearly kills me, and then I want to get up again
and put on that little black dress and wait
for you, yes you, to come over here
and get down on your knees and tell me
just how fucking good I look

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:12:47 GMT

Anger can be extremely powerful/empowering.

Brilliant Idea #77: Video Blogging Party

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:36:58 GMT

Everyone should do a video blog entry right about now.
When in motion, comedic value is so much more priceless!

Friday QotD

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:50:07 GMT

Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality. Should we all reveal our virtues we would also laugh for the same reason.

-Khalil Gibran, Sand and Foam

Her Morning Elegance

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 06:06:05 GMT

A very cool music video I encountered through mr_ron's LJ:

The song conveys my current situation so dreamily.

I dig SYTYCD

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:47:18 GMT

This dance is rocking my Friday.

And here is a dance that was performed in a major dance competition/performance in Beijing. The guy has only one leg and the girl lost her arm in a car accident. Rather than the emotional pull of the performance done by these remarkable dancers, I am struck by the riveting aesthetic visuals that are created as their unconventional bodies dance a picture. It's like a painting/story flourishing right before your eyes. I'm fascinated by it.

I can watch people dance forever.

Everyone Knows the World is Ending | Alice Fulton

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 01:58:11 GMT

Everyone knows the world is ending.
Everyone always thought so, yet
here’s the world. Where fundamentalists flick slideshows
in darkened gyms, flash endtime mess-
ages of bliss, tribulation
through the trembling bleachers: Christ will come
by satellite TV, bearing millennial weather
before plagues of false prophets and real locusts
botch the cosmic climate—which ecologists predict
is already withering from the green-
house effect as fossil fuels seal in
the sun’s heat and acid rains
give lakes the cyanotic blues.

When talk turns this way, my mother speaks in memories,
each thought a focused mote in the apocalypse’s
iridescent fizz. She is trying to restore a world
to glory, but the facts shift with each telling
of her probable gospel. Some stories have been
trinkets in my mind since childhood, yet what clings is not
how she couldn’t go near the sink
for months without tears when her mother died,
or how she feared she wouldn’t get her own
beribboned kindergarten chair, but the grief
in the skull like radium
in lead, and the visible dumb love like water
in crystal, at one with what holds it. The triumph

of worlds beyond words. Memory entices because ending is
its antonym. We’re here to learn
the earth by heart and everything is crying
mind me, mind me! Yet the brain selects and shimmers
to a hand on skin while numbing to the constant
stroke of clothes. Thoughts frame and flash
before the dark snaps back: the dress with lace tiers
she adored and the girl with one just like it,
the night she woke to see my father
walk down the drive and the second she remembered
he had died. So long as we keep chanting the words
those worlds will live, but just
so long, so long, so long. Each instant waves
through our nature and is nothing.
But in the love, the grief, under and above
the mother tongue, a permanence
hums: the steady mysterious
the coherent starlight.

Photog Faves

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:45:41 GMT

This girl's photography is amazing.

We are our flyers' wings by *iNeedChemicalX on deviant ART

Los Angeles: Winter 2008

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 10:35:51 GMT

Outdoor skating rink at Pershing Square.

....And the song that is ringing in the theme of my 2009:

Metric - Help, I'm Alive

Brrr

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 11:29:01 GMT

This YouTube addition is here because, let's face it, we are all weak for the Gap empire with its kitchy holiday jingle ads. Plus, I think Selma Blair kind of has a predatory, zombie sex appeal at the beginning of this video. Rainn Wilson is, well, Dwight Schrute.

I'm a cheeseball time to time.

"Ugly" Truths

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 12:09:37 GMT

My journal is slowly burning out. Not in the fiery, blazing fashion either. The interest and activity of the whole LJ realm seems to be on the decline for a while now. It's become extremely difficult to engage myself through written discourse for the time being. Although, reading every single entry from you fine folks is always a constant and pleasurable/visceral indulgence of mine.

That's why my little interactive request may go unheeded, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway.

I want to know the ugly truths. Particularly yours. I was never a fan, nor a skilled operator in "shooting the breeze" or mastering small talk. I'm not into the masks, superficial veneers, and pragmatic, enforced social etiquette. This is all a flagrant hypocrisy/contradiction to the very nature and essence I conduct and restrain myself in, but that's all the more reason why I fiercely, nay, quite savagely appreciate the bittersweet exposure. It is the ultimate conduit of connecting with someone for me.

I consider it the greatest of conquests when I become my own blasphemy.

I possess no right, entitlement, nor self-prescribed level of trust to demand ugly truths (or simply truths) from you. I leave any revelations up to you entirely. Again, posting anonymously is always an available option.

The purpose for this request is considerably for selfish motives. I don't like listening to other people's personal suffering, pain, deviances, mind-fuckery, etc. to make myself feel better about my life - to be affirmed that I've got it together more than most. No.

My ugly truth:
I request this to get my fix. I horde these tremulous and raw innards in a lavish treasure cove inside my exasperating, cryptic soul. I tuck each blood, sweat beads and teardrops into a bloody, sweaty, teary, fleshy fold of my own. Each jiggling bit regarded as something sacred and divine. It's never seen in a destructive, manipulative, nor perverse light. At least, not in my eyes - I'm sure an outsider may consider otherwise. It's a source of luminous beauty, inspiration and empowerment. It's an intoxicating ambrosia - an addictive substance of epic proportions. I need it. I crave it. I'm a soul-sucking leech who would only like to feed on the meatiest component of your being.

It's lightning. It's Pandora's box. It's a holy miracle.
It makes me feel alive the most.

And the catch is this: I seek to provoke/evoke the "ugly" truths from others and treat it as a cherished, fledgling novelty - without ever having to bare, or share the expense of my own. One-sided deal. The reasons for this need becomes obvious now.

Still want to share?

C'mon, I dare you.