Videoblogging week.04 (love & art)

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Today (yesterday) was Vincent Van Gogh's birthday.

"I believe people who think love prevents one from thinking clearly are wrong; for then one thinks very clearly and is more active than before. And love is something eternal -- the aspect may change, but not the essence. There is the same difference in a person before and after he is in love as there is in an unlighted lamp and one that is burning. The lamp was there and it was a good lamp, but now it is shedding light too, and that is its real function. And love makes one calmer about many things, and in that way, one is more fit for one's work."

--Vincent Van Gogh

Music: Vincent by Don McClean.

Videoblogging week.03 (inspiration)

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"Cease trying to work everything out with your minds. It will get you nowhere. Live by intuition and inspiration and let your whole life be revelation."

--Eileen Caddy (American astronaut and pilot; first woman to command space shuttle mission b.1956)

Music: My Piano Sings (Part 3) by John Holowach

Videoblogging week.02 (revolution)

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My grandparents came to the United States with their 5 children in the mid 60's, after the fall of dictator Rafael Trujillo. They transferred themselves from the tail end of one revolution in the Dominican Republic to the beginning of another here in the States.

I once had a conversation with my grandmother about war and revolution and she looked at me like I was silly and said "Que revolución? Por favor... revolución pasa todos los dias."

Translation: What revolution? Please... revolution happens every day.

So, in every form it takes...Vivá la revolución.

Music: Chan Chan by Buena Vista Social Club.

BTW: Check out Ryanne Hodson and Leslye James who initially got the old photo showing thing rolling for videoblogging week.

Videoblogging week.01 (backwards)

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It's videoblogging week and so I'm doing a short clip a day for this entire week. Yeesh.

Can you guess where the quote is from?

Music: Something that Happened by John Holowach's Basement of Broken Dreams.

Did Someone Say Birthday?

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Happy Birthday to you, you belong in the zoo...

Inside every older person is a younger person - wondering what the hell happened.
--Cora Harvey Armstrong

Music: Happy Birthday to Me (Live Fast Diarrhea CD) by The Vandals.

A Study in Process

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At the Getty Museum.

The process in art, the process in life, how we process art, how we process life... is the process more beautiful than the product? does the product help us to process?

"You're confusing product with process. Most people, when they criticize, whether they like it or hate it, they're talking about product. That's not art, that's the result of art. Art, to whatever degree we can get a handle on (I'm not sure that we really can) is a process. It begins in the heart and the mind with the eyes and hands."

-- Jeff Melvoin, Northern Exposure, Fish Story, 1994

Music: In the Waiting Line by Zero 7.

Do Not Assemble Furniture While Sleep Deprived

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There are a couple of things you shouldn't do when you haven't had any sleep... and one of them is assemble furniture. Especially furniture from IKEA. In the long run it's probably better to save for the good stuff. Furniture that you can move without it falling like a house of cards. No, wooden pegs are not a long term solution.

Oh, and the music that was playing on the radio was One Thing by Finger Eleven - cuz I guess if it not one thing, it might be the other.

Excuses, excuses

So I've been a bit late in the vlog game. Our first week in Cali was spent with no internet, no mail, and poor health. Apparently it affected my speech pattern, causing me to forget how to properly string adjectives, nouns, adverbs, and conjuctions together in a sentence.

Oh well - an official hello from the West Coast.

What's in a life?

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I promised that the next vlog post would be dedicated to my cousin, who died prematurely in an accident. If you want the story, you can read it HERE.

On Sunday, the father of one of our very close friends also died fairly young.

It got me thinking how many stories go untold. How many lives have rippled their influence into our own lives without our knowledge. How turning the pages of a newspaper can never give you the sense of a person, only their stats. And how video can immortalize us, giving us almost a tactile experience into the life of another human being.

I was rummaging through some old videos I had shot last summer and found one of an amazing NYC poet named Jackie Sheeler. The video is of a poem called "This Old Man." This time around it struck a different cord with me because it highlighted the personal story of a man who dies tragically and is buried in the pages of a newspaper.

I urge you to support your local poets and go to a poetry reading every now and then. Jackie has a book out published by Soft Skull Press called "Off The Cuffs: Poetry By and About the Police" that you can purchase if you'd like to read more of her work.

So, this one is dedicated to you Clyde.