SOK

mutate nomine de te tabula narratur

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:22:31 -0400

mutate nomine de te tabula narratur

hanami in the rain

Thu, 09 May 2013 10:54:00 -0400

hanami in the rain

‘Cause the first song was once for someone I tried to know

Sat, 04 May 2013 16:38:32 -0400

‘Cause the first song was once for someone I tried to know

Brooklyn’s Smorgasburg food market in Dumbo, where the...

Wed, 01 May 2013 21:41:00 -0400

Brooklyn’s Smorgasburg food market in Dumbo, where the food is delicious, the people are friendly, the dogs are adorable…and the good mood is contagious!!!

I just wanted to be part of something, but the I thing I wanted to be part of did not actually...

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 07:29:40 -0400

I just wanted to be part of something, but the I thing I wanted to be part of did not actually exist. I had to make it… (Ntone Edjabe, founder of Chimurenga)

It is said that we are born and die alone. The question that...

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 09:20:04 -0400

It is said that we are born and die alone. The question that imposes itself is if we live alone too. But the mere identification of the “aloness”, which lies beyond loneliness, is based on the assumption of separation. To separate self and other, creating individuality, as well as to separate time, not only in terms of moments, but in terms of individual and collective time, is logically not possible at the exact moments in and with which the condition of “aloness” is associated. Hence, the tautology denies the “aloness” of being born and dying, ands transforms it in the condition of living. Although the question is imposed by the first say, this answer is not. If we take THIS history as the symptom of individuality, ending “aloness” as we know (or, actually, do no know) it is linked to the deconstruction of this separation. Note that individuality is not JUST an illusion, as it implies really nasty effects. The labyrinth reappears: how did one develop its individuality and how does one transform its effects. Everyone is accustomed to judging he who leaves the cave by his choice of whether returning or not. The paradox is that if starting to question this stuff means identifying the cave, leaving the cave means not seeing the cave at all. So, how can you leave the cave or return to it, if it does not exist? In other words, if you do not pose the question, the puzzle does not exist. If you solve the puzzle, question and puzzle cease to be relevant. As and old zen saying goes: ”Before a man studies Zen, to him mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after he gets an insight into the truth of Zen through the instruction of a good master, mountains to him are not mountains and waters are not waters; but after this when he really attains to the abode of rest, mountains are once more mountains and waters are waters.”

Making Sendas out of Pão de Açúcar

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 20:07:06 -0400

Host: João & João

Jamming at the supermarket Pão de Açúcar, José Linhares str., Leblon, Rio de Janeiro: reviving traditions and resignifying nostalgia.

The idea is to drink, eat (at supermarket price/rates) while we “amateurize” classical pieces of jazz, rock, pop etc. There is an open piano, and we’re taking/should take other instruments.

People willing to “sum” (by playing or not) are more than welcome.

P.S.: After the last edition of the already traditional event (held at least since 2005), the fridge was taken away from the piano area. We shan’t be discouraged: to resist is to create!

Photo

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:41:24 -0400

The second video

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 22:53:39 -0400

The second video

The Avante/Garde Diaries recently released these two brief clips...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 22:53:15 -0400

The Avante/Garde Diaries recently released these two brief clips of an interview with master art forger Mark Landis who for the last 20 years created dozens if not hundreds of convincing art forgeries including works by Picasso which he then donated to institutions around the United States including over 50 art museums. Landis would often arrive at the museums dressed as a jesuit priest with elaborate stories of how he had acquired the artworks he subsequently donated. Incredibly, after a 2007 investigation it was determined that Landis may not have actually broken any laws. He never once tried to profit from the fake artworks but instead seemed to gain enough satisfaction from fooling curatorial staff members at various institutions. While the interviews above by the Avante/Garde Diaries are not a comprehensive documentary, they are a fascinating glimpse into the world of this rather bizarre man.

Last year curators Matthew Leininger and Aaron Cowan collected some 90 forged artworks by Landis, as well as his “jesuit father” costume (donated by the forger himself) and held an exhibition called Faux Real at the Dorothy W. and C. Lawson Reed Jr. Gallery in Cincinnati.

From http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/01/mark-landis/

A long walk to never is pretty far indeed…..

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 19:16:00 -0400

A long walk to never is pretty far indeed…..

I blinked, and amenities were no more.

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 17:43:47 -0400

I blinked, and amenities were no more.

Video

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 14:20:47 -0500

Video

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 22:40:49 -0500

Theory and practice

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 02:19:26 -0500

I’m theory, she is practice

I’m an actor, she is no actress

I pretend, she is

I confront, she transforms; I only demand, she always solves

Yet, I love and she loves

I love and she loves

We pulse

And then, theory is put in practice

The actor stops pretending and starts acting

The confrontation generates transformation

And demands meet solutions

We pulse

We pulse and we live

"and i know it was me who called it over but i still wish you’d fought me ‘til your dying..."

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 22:45:31 -0500

“and i know it was me who called it over but i still wish you’d fought me ‘til your dying day…don’t let me get away”

It was an old 45 record that had the Beatles’ song...

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 20:26:46 -0500

It was an old 45 record that had the Beatles’ song “Something.” I used to listen to it all the time when I was little and thinking about grown-up things. I would go to my bedroom window and stare at my refelection in the glass and the trees behind it and just listen to the song for hours. I decided then that when I met someone I thought was as beautiful as the song, I should give it to that person. And I didn’t mean beautiful on the outside. I meant beautiful in all ways. So, I was giving it to Sam.

-the perks of being a wallflower

Pseudo Coffee

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 21:07:19 -0500

There are two kids, a boy and a girl, sitting on the opposite sides of an older woman who looks to be their grandmother. She is dressed in the standard hospital gown. Her hair is a faded yellow, and extremely short. She’s probably already gone through chemotherapy, and is now moving onto radiation treatment.

The boy is wearing a New York Yankees shirt; he has blonde hair and blue eyes, with gentle flecks of small, brown freckles scattered on his nose. I watch the little boy, thinking to myself that he is going to grow up to be very handsome. The girl, his little sister, sits hugging her knees. Her hair is slightly darker than her brother’s; it is long, and tied in messy pigtails. Several wispy strands of hair fall in her face. Her small, circular glasses magnify her eyes, and somehow make her even cuter. I’m relieved to see some young faces in the waiting room, kids that don’t fully understand where they are or what their grandmother is going through. Perhaps they do know, but their faces feign ignorance if they do. They could be sitting on a train or a park bench. In contrast, their grandmother’s face shows fatigue and too much understanding of why she, along with everyone else, is here.

I try to read the Milan Kundera novel I’ve borrowed from Claire, but can’t focus on the words on the page. Instead, I watch the kids and occasionally smile at them if they catch me looking their way.

After a few minutes, the boy and the girl get up from their chairs to the small table where there are paper cups and red coffee stirrers. Next to the table is a water cooler.

“Gram, there’s no more hot chocolate,” the little girl states sadly.

“Can you ask them if they have some?” the boy chimes in.

In her gown, the grandmother goes to one of the nurses, and within a few minutes the nurse comes back with a box of hot chocolate packets.

“Here ya go, guys,” the nurse says cheerily.

“Thank you,” they chorus back without being told by their grandmother.

I watch as the brother and sister begin to make their drinks. As the packets are opened, the dry, powdery smell of instant cocoa waft into the air and reach my nostrils, reminding me of sleepovers in the wintertime. I find it funny that they would want something like hot chocolate in the middle of July, when it is nearly eighty degrees outside.

The boy stirs in the hot water, puts a cap on his cup, and sips his hot chocolate carefully, using the red stirrer as a straw.

“Now make sure you don’t spill it,” their grandmother warns them.

“Yeah, they wouldn’t like that because they’d have to clean it,” the boy agrees, referring to the nurses.

“That’s right, honey.”

I suddenly wish I had a sibling, someone with whom you could always share hot chocolate.

“How much do you have left?” the little girl asks after some quiet sipping. The brother tips his cup so that she can see, just as one of the radiologists in a white jacket comes for their grandmother.

“Now, be good. I’ll be right back,” she says before leaving them. They have obviously done this many times before. They neither protest to her leaving nor seem worried.

“Tell Erica to come say hi to us,” the boy says before their grandmother leaves. I have no idea who Erica is, but assume it is one of the radiologists or nurses.

On their own they behave not at all differently. They remain quietly in their seats, content with their hot chocolates.

“If you just sip the top,” the boy tells his sister, “it tastes like coffee.”

I smile as I remember how I, too, used to assume coffee tasted like hot chocolate. Because in a child’s mind there is no reason why coffee shouldn’t taste like hot chocolate because they are both brown. Drinking hot chocolate in big mugs used to make me feel like an adult with a large cup of coffee. Now this boy is doing the same, imaging his hot chocolate to be coffee, although I doubt he has ever tasted the real thing.

As I sit there, I feel an overwhelming emotion of love for these two kids. I love their innocent faces, and how happy a simple thing like hot chocolate makes them.

Perhaps this is what happiness is: a child feeling like an adult thanks to a cup of pseudo coffee.

I hope the boy doesn’t taste actual coffee for a long while so that he can be shielded from its bitter taste. Coffee’s actual taste is its worst deception: looks like hot chocolate, tastes like dirt.

And I hope the boy doesn’t grow up for a long while so that he can be shielded from life’s disappointments. Adulthood is a deception in itself. It falsely promises freedom, and instead administers shackles in the form of limitations and responsibilities.

Dr. Ryan, the main radiologist, passes by the waiting room, and as he does, the boy and the girl wave to him. He gives them a big smile and waves back, and also nods in my direction. I smile back.

“Was that Dr. Ryan?” the girl asks in a quiet voice.

“Yup.”

How long have these two been coming here with their grandmother? What kind of cancer does she have and will she be okay? Will she still be here six months from now, a year from now, ten years from now? Will she be able to see these kids, her grandkids, graduate high school? College?

“Bye, guys,” I say to the duo as I’m leaving. They both smile shyly with their pure faces and wave their small hands.

Stay just the way you are. Don’t forget about pseudo coffee and how it made you so happy, I want to say. Instead, I silently wish them every happiness in the world.

You find yourself trapped in a deep, dark hole with what seems like no way out. There is nobody to...

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 21:12:31 -0500

You find yourself trapped in a deep, dark hole with what seems like no way out. There is nobody to talk to except for your inner demons. These demons torment you daily with no rest. Self-hate greets you in the morning, loneliness accompanies your days, and despair tucks you in at night.

Tears flow without warning, but nobody notices or pretends not to see.

Phone conversations begin and end.

Most days are spent in bed because it is just too hard to get up.

You hurt yourself to try to express the turmoil occurring inside, scratching at your delicate skin in the middle of the sleepless night. In the morning the faint, red marks remind you of your suffering.

How to get out of this hole is constantly on your mind. Along with ways to stay in it. Because as hard as it is to stay in this hole, this dark place has become comfortable and familiar.

So how do you get out?

How do you even begin to climb out?

The moment when all the growing up you think you did in the last few months is put to a test. How...

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 18:39:47 -0500

The moment when all the growing up you think you did in the last few months is put to a test. How can you be childlike when you spend all your strength resisting being childish?