Monday, March 26, 2007

Sunday


Today is how I would want every Sunday to be, without stress and very unstructured. I abhor the weekends when all I am doing is running errands and being a good consumer. Make any other day that, but not Sunday. Anyway, I am on my second day of my DMSO treatment. DMSO is like magical pixie farie dust that nobody has heard of for healing everything from arthritis to muscle strains to reversing effects of Down's Syndrome. I am using it to treat my knee from the muscle problems in most likely the vastus medialis muscle. I have been doing acupunture, taking msm, flax, eating right, not biking, wearing a knee brace, using chinese herb linament, moxa....DMSO penetrates the skin to expedite regrowth of tissue and muscle among a pretty hefty list of other things. Anyway, when I apply it locally, I can feel it doing its job. I am hoping this will be the solution to my now 8 month old nagging problem. I should be able to see results very soon, so keep your fingers crossed, or uncrossed for that matter.

I've also been working on my Bikram Dialogue. I have to have the majority of the poses memorized by the time I get to the teacher training on April 15. It is a little tedious just because of the inconsistencies between different sections. Sometimes the phrases are reversed, sometimes they are abbreviated, and sometimes they are just different from what I've heard any teacher say.

I am also reading Daniel Quinn's Beyond Civilization. This is great for people that are frustrated with the typical Daniel Quinn style of writing where the socratic method becomes a little too tedious. This is a no b.s. approach for Quinn and he does give some very thorough examples of what how different minds can think and how stupid doing the same thing that doesn't work is. He is definitely a tribalist, because it has been a model for over 3 million years of human existence that has worked. I am really inspired by this text in particular, where others I have sort of been confused about what to do. The industrial revolution didn't happen overnight neither does transitioning into a different way of living. Businesses can be structed in ways that make them more beneficial for their employees and thus making them into more of a tribal way of life. I highly recommend reading this book to anyone who is concerned with the bleakness of the future.

Time to read and sleep.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Berlin

I have this growing feeling that everything in my life has been done. By that I mean that I feel like I am a character in a video game or a book whose past, present, and future are already completed. I'm just present to experience the things that I've already done. I can envision this book already completed or not, and I am writing what's already there.
It's not that I'm opposed to this, but I go back and forth with the text I read and have trouble descerning what the right way for me is, if there is a right way. Maybe I'll forge my own way combining a little from each wisdom. I am so caught in a world where you are a this or a that emphatically. Most times you are very defined terms. You need to be something that you can easily comunicate to others. You need to be inside the box or outside the box, but not waivering in between. It's so cliche to not want to be a definition. I guess everybody says they want that, but aren't sure what that means.
Maybe I'll be stronger and wiser if I continue to forge my own path, or maybe I'll just be more confused. Maybe I won't be alive tomorrow. That's the reality of life. I may make grand plans, but I can only live in the present.

I guess that's the problem: I feel like I need something to supplement myself because I am missing some pieces. Or some of those pieces are dormant and need something to draw them to the surface.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Bilbao

The following are pictures of Bilbao, Spain taken with my Lomo Fisheye 2 during mid December 2006. All the images are hand process Black and White, then scanned with minimal editing. Some text accompanies the pictures, which is from my journal while I was there.
I'm having this intense feeling that I need a sponge to soak up something: something to soak up a minute, a hour, a day of this trip. Things are never the same and you will never be able to relive moments that you enjoy. At the same time, nobody can take those memories away from you.
The inner frustration that causes the outer frustration that causes the inner frustration.
It's a cycle, but where did the cycle begin and how do I end it?
Maybe confusion only brings confusion and it is cyclical, with periods of clarity and then returning to its normal state.
If that's the way it's going to be, then I wish someone authoritative would just let me know.
A postcard or an email would work.
My life is the monotony of a bumpy log, or a bumpy train as it were.
Time to end this sappy drivel,
Bilbao is not even close!

Friday, March 16, 2007

Morocco Part 2

This is Part 2 of my Moroccoan photos from my Lomo Fisheye 2. These are all shot on 35mm Black and White film, scanned, and edited minimally. These are all photos from Marrakesh, Morocco. We were there the week of the International Film Festival in late November 2006. All of the double exposures are done on film, there is no digital manipulation or layering of the images.





Thursday, March 15, 2007

Morocco Part 1

The following are selected pictures from my Lomo Fisheye 2 and selected excerpts from my journal. These are pictures from Fes and Marrakesh, Morocco at the end of November 2006.
This train ride has been filled with small roaches. I'm not so much bothered by them. When the toilet flushes, a hole opens directly to the train tracks. A nice way to leave a little bit of you behind.
Roaches are gross, but it's not like they bit or anything. What are you going to do?
She had a Disneyland fantasy of Morocco and I admit that I had a slightly different vision...
Most of the places on Fridays as we found out, don't open until later. We decided to walk towards the Kasbah and the medina.
There are donkeys and mules that pass by carrying god knows what: oil of sorts, propane, wood, animal skins, or beverages like portable vending machines. These animals look terrible. Some of their legs look sprained and their eyes tell you the misery that is their lives. Nobody cares.
There was a weird dichotomy between the old culture and the youthful one. Belts and jeans that say Armani and Diesel on them, next to people selling oranges, traditional garb, and spices.
It is amazing how cheap some things are there. We went to the markets and got bread, tomatoes, avocados, cucumber, a bag of olives, onion, and bananas for about 2 bucks.
Don't get me wrong, the stares were still there, but they didn't have hate and violence behind them. In my opinion, they were more about the curiosity of different cultures.
In the short time we were in Fes, we experiended a completely different country, one a lot cleaner, one a lot more cultural, and one vastly more accomodating.

The train ride was nice to Fes except the compartments were kind of cramped. We met a very nice an on the ride who spoke very good English and he recommended a guide in Fes because of the complexity of the medina.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

These are the Northatlantic photos from the Metro show in Chicago last October.













Cabron at Voz Alta

These are the Cabron pictures from the Voz Alta show where they played with Mr. Tube and the Objects. My apologies to Cabron for getting them done in a snails pace. The above photo of Shane looks like a Francis Bacon portrait.