Happy Whatever.

Its not the Holiday that counts. Just the "Happy", right?

Fight, Forgive and Forget

Forgiving. In the season of giving. That's an interesting thought. Forgiving is one of the best gifts there is to give. To others.  To forgive yourself. Forget about it, it's no big deal. Your sins have already been forgiven and forgotten anyway.

Battle Ignition

Alors je remonte, re-regarde mon "oeuvre" que je pensais, quand je l'ai finie, avoir fait pas si mal, et je vois une merde. J'ai honte, c'est une merde totale, une laideur. Un sketch a moitie reussi. A moitie foire. Je suis decu de moi. Je me dis que jamais je peux presenter pareil cadeau de noel avec la tete haute. Mais je realise que pour le reste de la famille, c'est un "beau dessin". Un dessin "que eux seraient pas capable de faire". Mais je m'en fous que eux soient capable ou que je sois la seule personne au canada capable de faire des lignes avec du charbon, la verite, c'est comme celle des tisserands d'or. C'est une laideur, et je dois essayer de le refaire. Mieux.

Parce que quand on est artiste et on se fait complimenter pour des oeuvres qu'on aime pas, on se sent insulte. Ca fait chier. "C'est une merde mais tout le monde fait semblant que c'est un tas d'or." Tout le monde ment, tout le monde ferme les yeux. Pour afficher de l'art, il faut que ca soit bien. Le "meaning" c'est bon, mais le sketch il est pas pour moi, alors le meaning, on s'en contre-calisse.

Bon. J'm asseois. J'ouvre iTunes. Putain que mon ordi est lent. Je mets mes ecouteurs, je vais chercher un verre d'eau. Non, je bois du robinet de la salle de bain. Bon. Nouveau papier. Mon sketchbook est en bas. Je trouve pas; papier d'imprimante. 2 poignees de glosettes. Une autre gorgee d'eau de robinet. De la musique rock.

Let's Go

X-out-mas

MERRY CHRISTMAS. Consider the meaning of that sentence. What's really important about the 25th of december, for all of us MeGen. kids? The new meaning of christmas; selfless parents buying selfish children gifts that won't ever make them happy. "Be happy, at least on the 25th, if not on every other day of the year." Often by the end of the day we can't stand the distant relatives that came to visit us and we can't wait for they day to be over and for them to leave. "Merry Christmas indeed." If we can't stand them for one day, then why bother? Tradition? Is tradition important? Doing what we've always done? Why not question tradition, question values and try to find some meaning in these things?

They say I'm trying my hardest not to conform. They're absolutely right. I don't know what I want. I am a chameleon. I'm always changing my mind, depending on  how good the people around me are at arguing their points. Right now I really don't like christmas. I'm making pitchers for my family. Its all I can do. So that's what I'll do, I guess.

...

And I keep contradicting myself.

At any rate, be happy tomorrow, guys. Everyone that I know. On both sides of the ocean. Everyone that I've met, everyone that I remember and  everyone that I forgot. BRIKO, j'espere que tu vas apprecier les cadeaux du pere noel, mais je souhaite que tu apprecies les cadeaux plus nombreux de tes parents. Merci. Merci pour les skis neufs. Merci d'etre ne. Thanks for giving me the change to meet the world. To realise that I'm a little piece of nothing. Honestly, thank you. I couldn't have done it alone. I still have this foolish worldview. I still don't know who I am or what I want or even if I want anything. I don't want gifts for "christmas" gifts suck. When you're happy, its nice, when you're not, you still have to pretend that you are and be nice. When you don't want gifts you have to pretend that you did and are happy for the presents you got.

I've got enough gifts already. One of them cost almost 50 000$ Enough to last a lifetime. And it wasn't from Santa. So honestly, thank you. I appreciate all that you've done and all that you've never been thanked for. I'm at fault. These eyes are not for seeing. They judge, though.

Merry Christmas. Be happy tomorrow. Sleep well. I made you a gift I thought you'd like. For once.

Finding Peace

Have you ever experienced something odd, something you think you understand but at the same time don't quite know how it happened or whether or not it was real?

... I guess you must have.

Earlier tonight - which actually was the early morning, I got up from my chair, feeling a back discomfort, and decided that it would get better if I tried to sit on the toilet. But as soon as I stood up, a strong pain seized me in the lower back and in my kidneys? The kidney area? Anyway, I stumbled into the bathroom but could find no relief, and the pain seemed to get worse. So I came back out and decided to lie on the ground, and did.

What kind of pain was this? Was this a back seizure? Is this what my mom endured for 3 whole days before her friend finally forced her to go to the hospital? I couldn't believe it. It was so painful I couldn't even shit. I rolled around, scraping the carpet, then crawled onto the sofa and lay there, twitching only with my feet and feeling nothing but amazement that one could go on living with what I thought was intolerable. And the more I thought about it, the more it hurt, and stretching didn't help for anything.

So I breathed, and tried to think of the void. The white void, to be exact. Almost instantly I felt a bit better, but then when I paused to celebrate the seizure hit me like a truck, and I was twitching and muttering again. But I was thinking too. It worked. So...

I jumped down from the sofa. Sat cross legged. Put my hands together. Closed my eyes. Tried to regulate my breathing, it was really hard at first because all I wanted was to breathe as much and as fast as I could. I thought of the void, of my hara "fan" visualizer of energy circulating. I put both hands over my stomach, tried to push energy into my midsection, but it didn't work. So I just breathed. I started to feel better. I quieted my breath. Soon it was easy. The pain was like a throb in the back of my mind. Then it vanished. I opened my eyes and it was 3.

What had happened? Had I fallen asleep? I did not dream, and I was,  for trying desperately to shut out the real world, strangely aware of it. Of my slow breathing. Of the dissipating pain, too, at first. But then only the void, and only ever so often. I don't think I thought of anything... Was this meditation? or just sleeping in the sitting position? I thought it mattered, but it doesn't. The importance is that I was able to defeat the seizure and get rid of my tiredness.

I can't help but wonder what might have gone wrong with my brother at 3-4 am EST on a Sunday. Are those things possible? I don't believe in that, but If I was able to rid  myself of pain through meditation, or forced sleep, then why not?

A Lesson In History, Part 1

The year 2009 is nearing the end. I guess its about time we turn back the pendulum, no? So here goes, long story made short.

 September 3-8, 2008
Copenhagen, Danmark
Nyhavn port


I had gone to see it the night before, I could barely make out the blue letters on what I would later learn was called the stern. It seemed so unreal, so massive compared to all the other sailing ships I'd seen before, huge, and taller than it was long, with two masts. A man was patrolling the deck, fixing things here and there. I was scared. The Fryderyk Chopin. My house for the next year. My school for the next year. My job for the next year. My life for the next year. It was strangely compelling, epic, mysterious, threatening.


The next morning, I asked my mother to shave my head. I dragged my massive dufflebag through the streets, I looked for others, but there was none. Tourists stared. I was a tourist too.


I met a young man with a CREW sweater. He was walking towards the ship, so I assumed he was a crew member. He was a student. I felt awkward, but he told me he was from Ontario. His name was Geoff. He's at UBC or UVic now, I dunno. He's a good guy.


A man grabbed my bag, so I mistook him for the director when he helped me on board. He was Gabi's father. My room was the first down the stairs. A tiny three man room, as wide as a double bed. I made the most of the space, I picked the top bunk. My roommates were Morgen and Scott. I've always wondered what they think of me. Anyway, when we were done, I walked back to the Kongens Nytorv square with my mother. We went our separate ways. I went back to the ship and sulked as everyone else was off for a meal with their parents. Some would see us off on Saturday morning.


We trained for the rest of the week, tied knots, climbed, learned about lines, how to throw the heaving lines, and so on. I was introduced to my team; Scott, Morgen, Cathy, Gabi and Alice. Together we were Watch 4. There's a polish superstition about setting sail on a friday, and so we waited until 12:00 am Saturday before leaving. By then, it had started to drizzle. It was by far our worst procedure. We fumbled and struggled and the professional crew had to help us with everything. After we had left the crowd of tired parents on the rainy Copenhagen dock, we rushed to bed. Watch 4's first shift was at two in the morning. I was tired but excited. It rained for the entire two hours that we were on deck. Michal explained the tasks. Watch for other boats. Green means starboard, Red means port. white lights high for the bow, low for the stern. When we got out of the busy copenhagen port area, the captain decided to set a sail. Thus I was the first to man the helm, and my teammates set the first sail, they were on portside, so it must have been the main stay. And then our watch was over. Wet, we made our way into our beds. I was still pretty excited. Looking back, I don't really know what I was stressing over. Life on a boat is fundamentally peaceful.

Dear Santa, this is what's wrong with the world...

Step 1 : Google White Man's Burden
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden

The following post is a critique of this blog:
http://problemsfree.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html

I will go in structured order until I am inspired to rant.
...

Actually, I don't fee like finishing this complaint right now.  But it pisses me off that people say garbage like "These people need to be saved by OUR god!" The world has been damaged enough by the good intentions of pretentious Whites. "Go to their country and sell fruit and vegetables!" It puts in value the ignorance of these westerners... Africa has it's own markets, it's own supermarkets, it's own food stands. To go there and give away food would damage their economy and hurt them in the long run, and to sell it would pose a myriad of other problems.

It pisses me off that people turn to God for solutions to disasters. Humans are not for sale. True. "Let's help these children because love is the answer to everything kind" "Angels, they're everywhere. They love us so much that they spend their time looking after us. Making sure we are doing the right thing and keep our promises and live up to the plans God has given us all." "Help fight hunger." "Spread love through the world." "Stop whale fishing." "There is no such thing as an unwanted child in the eyes of God." "Face your problems, ask God for help. "Disabled people in need of help to fulfill their dreams, make the change." We all belong together. "We need everyone's support to change the world. Believe and miracles will happen."


.... This person really pisses me off. Partly because she/he is right, partly because she doesn't have any solutions and yet preaches, and finally because I know that telling people what is the right way to live doesn't do anything positive. And she also doesn't know the whole story behind whatever. The only thing it does to us is make us feel bad about watching a picture of a boy eating shit right out of a cow's ass. What about the cameraman who snapped this picture? Yay if he was trying to send a message. And also, I really am pissed off about all that positivism. The world right now, I think, is a hard place to live in. People die abandoned in ditches all the time. Prostitutes, homeless people, salarymen working the gears of life like a donkeys round the grain "moule." Rich people too pathetic to find their own happiness. Rich people so embedded in their world that they don't care to see anything else. Poor folk with large families and small wallets. People that suffer. People that walk on. People that pretend not to see. People that can't see. If there is a God, he says "help yourselves." 


I'm tired of the media, tired of this worthless illusion of what the world is. Africa, Senegal, poor countries are more than whatever misery we see in shows or pictures. And besides, there's little that we can do as outsiders to help these people; to truly reach a long lasting "better world", undesirables must either be bleached from the world, or those countries that struggle with these kinds of problems must get the political, financial and social strength to do it themselves. Thus, Foreign aid offers limited relief, and rightly so. If we are unwilling to help every single human being, then we either have to help only those we see and acknowledge that we are unjust, or help them help themselves. It is not the white man's burden nor the West's place to help "lesser" societies or to raise them out of catastrophe.


Does that mean that we should just let them be? ... Maybe, I don't know what else to do. Thinking "the world is a terrible place" "Or people shouldn't do that", or saying "We have to act!" but not saying how or when or what or where or who doesn't get us anywhere. What should we do, then? Hmmm. Change our perceptions. See the good things that are worth preserving, rather than the bad things that need to be destroyed. We can't destroy them anyway. Not without going beyond ourselves. 


Of course, I'm just a kid, and I also saying "This is what needs to be done". I'm perhaps not being as dramatic though. My thoughts are immature, but I know that I'm right. We don't know nearly enough about the world to complain that it's a bad place to live. Maybe it is. But if I lived in a terrible place, then I don't think I'd focus on the terrible things. That would make me just want to fight the westerners, if I knew what was going on in their backyards. And then where would I be? Just another generation of oppressors born from oppression.

Culture Clash and tatoos

Your tattoo image is nice, the flames are bold and evocative, but again, I find it curious when someone uses the images and symbols of another culture; do we know what these things mean? Do you feel like they represent you? Are they youre symbols, or symbols you wish were yours?


Yeah, these represent me. I didn't do a good job of explaining it in class; but I wanted a tatoo that revealed something about myself and my struggles. Perhaps that's why I ended up only making a small thing; I would have liked a full body tatoo but I believe that these should have some kind of meaning, and I couldn't find one until 2 days before the due date. The spiral is a circle made of interlacing "white" and black; that's a modified version of my personal logo, the SPEARHEAD, and these represent the two races that are within me, but white is transparent. That's because I really only have one culture. On first impressions, I'm black, and later, I'm seen as white. Never both. The sets of lines are called trigams, they are the chinese version of the cardinal directions, but they are more than that. I took a long time to decide what to put there because I wanted something from a culture that in no way represents me (I think japanese writing is cooler but I have delved into the karate world and also read manga and have a japanese dictionary and am generally interested with samurai and ninja and traditional architecture and how japanese culture is progressing towards westernization...) So the trigams. These are cardinal directions, so they are paths, they were the many options that I have to choose from, and myself as the SPEARHEAD Whirl in the middle , unable to commit to one. Also, the trigams refer to my dissatisfaction to my culture; I litterally would have to borrow my father's culture, because that's how little I am connected to it. Thus the best way to explain that was to borrow something, in this case the trigams because of their other significances. The crawling tatoo is something I've always wanted, and I wanted something that would look visually interesting. The fact that it was supposed to depict a dragon in flames has little to do with me beyond it's asthetic value; If I was an animal, I'd be a snake or a phoenix.


Perhaps once I wished I was different, but nowadays I'm coming to terms with these difficulties and what they mean for me. Thats to answer the last question.

Steampunk

Traditionnaly refers to fiction novels set in an alternate victorian reality, featuring "the path not taken" in matters of world politics or science. Steampunk fiction is traditionally less dystopian than it's futuristic counterpart, cyberpunk. Suprisingly, Steampunk fiction is very present in today's mainstream entertainment industry; "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" movie and comic book are considered steampunk, Disney's "Atlantis "but also a variety of anime such as Fullmetal Alchemist, novels such as "The Difference Engine" or the various works of Jules Vernes.

Various artists have stylized modern items into a steampunk genre - these range from clothes to toys to various useful items - a link!
http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20080613/the-10-coolest-steampunk-gadgets-ever/

Steampunk fiction often incorporates various gadgets (such as the steamwheel in Steamboy) of complex, mechanical looking design - imagine perhaps, a steampowered version of Da Vinci's gliders.

... I see a need to archive this link, so...
http://www.annabotelho.com/?p=534

Microwave Friendly

This is a hilarious picture. The idea of using a microwave as a way to commit murder had never occured to me. Although the actual microwaving (and the subsequent vaporization of the body's water) of a living creature would likely be quite horrifying.

Hmmm... to microwave a pet in a gallery as a way to bring animal cruelty out to the unavoidable surface would be an interesting way to spark a revolt against  animal cruelty... political art. If it was so, I would microwave a live kitten, or a puppy since those are the cute things most likely to spark a vivid reaction. Either that or a dying, suffering animal just asking to die... therefore highlighting that the ends do not actually justify the means, plus all the anti-animal cruelty propaganda.