A long day of timbre from MIRAI_MIZUE on Vimeo.
Friday, February 25, 2011
MIRAI MIZUE MUSIC MADNESS
Overwhelming music video by Mirai Mizue! Check out thesilentballet.com for a hefty three part selection of short videos handpicked from 2010.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
PLEASE DON'T FEED THE GALAXIES
My mother recently sent me a link to an article about a 'blob' spotted in space by the Hubble telescope. Actually, the blob's image was captured by the telescope but discovered by Dutch Schoolteacher Hanny Van Arkel who is an active volunteer with Galaxy Zoo. Galaxy Zoo allows its volunteers to observe hundreds of thousands of images of space in the hopes of creating a data base to further categorize and ultimately better understand the nature of galaxies. In some cases the unexpected discovery may bubble to the surface and, who knows, you might end up with some ancient mysterious mass of gas named after you. I'm going to go volunteer as soon as possible, and I think I'll name my first celestial anomaly after my mom!
Friday, January 28, 2011
Saturday, January 8, 2011
THE TRUTH HURTS
I'll soon be turning 31 at the beginning of this New Year and I feel that I need to write a little motivational post for everyone as I enter- as unprepared as ever- my 4th decade of life!
It seems like just yesterday that I was only 4 years old, and I can vividly remember a summer afternoon which led me to trip and fall while playing in the gravel driveway. A stone pierced the skin on my knee and the blood quickly found its way out of me. I panicked as a red line was drawn, from my knee, closer and closer to my striped sock. Mom, like a pro, helped me inside, sat me on the kitchen counter, sprayed the wound with some first aid kit stuff and, within seconds, magically healed my horrendously maimed limb back to the way it had always looked. My tears dried up, but the damage was done. I remember staring into my tiny bandaged wound as if it were a black mirror and a future of imminent gouges, scars, torn tissues, and drawn blood flashed before my eyes. I do remember it so well. I was immediately aware that this would happen again. I would fall, I would cry, I would be damaged, and I would be faced with physical pain many times over. That single trail of blood found its way down my leg as if to draw a timeline that was at the time yet to be marked off by any significant events. In that profoundly prescient moment it was clear that those days, those horrors were going to be unavoidable. I accepted it... or forgot about it once I got my hands on some Legos...
That bright red time line has certainly reappeared many times in 30 years, each time documenting a new momentous occasion. The line is rarely straight these days and it often branches off violently in many directions. Sometimes it really is as gory and painful as it appears to be, and sometimes I can get away with spraying it with that magic first aid stuff and it goes away with no tears. I still often stare into the wounds and the wounds still stare back; However, these days I'm not looking into an abyss of terror presented to me by some stranger. No, the blood and pain and I have almost become close friends, and we would almost look forward to seeing each other if the encounters weren't so random and typically inconvenient. We've shared and survived many close calls in this lifetime and we've accepted that there is no way to be more prepared.
So onward through 2011, and may it kick our asses so that we may outlive any of those threats that we feared when we were younger. We can't allow ourselves to be bullied by our own doubts and we certainly shouldn't fear death, but we can have respect and patience for the unruliness of time. Cheers.
It seems like just yesterday that I was only 4 years old, and I can vividly remember a summer afternoon which led me to trip and fall while playing in the gravel driveway. A stone pierced the skin on my knee and the blood quickly found its way out of me. I panicked as a red line was drawn, from my knee, closer and closer to my striped sock. Mom, like a pro, helped me inside, sat me on the kitchen counter, sprayed the wound with some first aid kit stuff and, within seconds, magically healed my horrendously maimed limb back to the way it had always looked. My tears dried up, but the damage was done. I remember staring into my tiny bandaged wound as if it were a black mirror and a future of imminent gouges, scars, torn tissues, and drawn blood flashed before my eyes. I do remember it so well. I was immediately aware that this would happen again. I would fall, I would cry, I would be damaged, and I would be faced with physical pain many times over. That single trail of blood found its way down my leg as if to draw a timeline that was at the time yet to be marked off by any significant events. In that profoundly prescient moment it was clear that those days, those horrors were going to be unavoidable. I accepted it... or forgot about it once I got my hands on some Legos...
That bright red time line has certainly reappeared many times in 30 years, each time documenting a new momentous occasion. The line is rarely straight these days and it often branches off violently in many directions. Sometimes it really is as gory and painful as it appears to be, and sometimes I can get away with spraying it with that magic first aid stuff and it goes away with no tears. I still often stare into the wounds and the wounds still stare back; However, these days I'm not looking into an abyss of terror presented to me by some stranger. No, the blood and pain and I have almost become close friends, and we would almost look forward to seeing each other if the encounters weren't so random and typically inconvenient. We've shared and survived many close calls in this lifetime and we've accepted that there is no way to be more prepared.
So onward through 2011, and may it kick our asses so that we may outlive any of those threats that we feared when we were younger. We can't allow ourselves to be bullied by our own doubts and we certainly shouldn't fear death, but we can have respect and patience for the unruliness of time. Cheers.
Friday, December 31, 2010
A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY
Here are a couple more fascinating artists! The Institut Für Feinmotorik have a handful of music releases. They make their songs using multiple record players that amplify the sounds from no records at all, and instead the sounds of sandpaper, white noise, thumping rubber bands and other such experimental source material are picked up through the needle and tonearm of the "empty" turntables.
Institut Für Feinmotorik
The other admirable umlauted artist is Zoë Keating. Zoë's current releases feature her exceptional cello playing fed into a computer that allows a phrase of music to repeat itself which then allows a new layer to seamlessly be added on top- and so on. Eventually a full string section is breathing beneath up to sixteen layers of musical phrases.
Institut Für Feinmotorik
Zoë Keating
Friday, December 24, 2010
CHRISTMAS TIME TRAVELING
Merry Christmas, Everyone! And Happy Birthday , Mithra you old fart (the God of the Sun- not the Son of God- whose birthdate was lent to Christianity in order to nail down a day for the merry-making we know today to be Christmas)
L to R: The Laziest Man on Mars, Betty Foster, Santa Claus, Billy Foster.
Christmas certainly does garishly mark the passing of a year for me and most Americans. Even New Year's Eve/Day doesn't have a marketing campaign that completely envelopes the senses the way Christmas does. We always seem surprised that Christmas is here again, and that it's over so quickly, and then we're quick to look forward to Spring and Summer. I remember teasing a friend, who was exhausted from the holidays at the start of the year, by saying, "Before you know it, it will be Christmas again!" I feel that just by repeating that phrase in my head now, I have managed to somehow skip those 360 days and here I am back on Christmas Eve. I time traveled! Even the same tree found its way into my living room, and if it wasn't for a few new ornaments on that tree I could almost assume I traveled back in time. Yes, Christmas is here again. Familiar holiday sights, sounds, and smells have been assaulting me for over a month now and I can only hope to make it safely back to my time machine to do it all again next year... or last year... or maybe on another planet...
L to R: The Laziest Man on Mars, Betty Foster, Santa Claus, Billy Foster.
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