... blown right away....

.... between a longstanding love for film, a healthy respect for architecture, a nearly fetishistic obsession with design and a newfound respect for the sheer AMOUNT and quality of work this kind of animation requires I must say that Alex Roman's film The Third & The Seventh literally BLEW MY MIND this morning....

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Seriously, you must go full screen to enjoy this....

... there may be something to be said....

"His anger made him suddenly sober. His whole life had been a fight to attain the impossible. Son of a mother who deserted him when he was three. Father, an Irish prizefighter who dies from a lucky punch from a third-rate kid. A life growing up on his own in [1930's] South Philadelphia. Enlisting in the Air Force at seventeen because anything seemed better than the world he knew. Then the war... being in the midst of it... seeing guys you lived with and slept with catch a bullet at your side... wondering why they got it and not you. They had families who were waiting for them at home. Families and sweethearts who wrote long letters and sent food packages. And gradually the idea hits you that maybe they got your bullet because there was something back there, waiting to be done... by you. and it's your job to go back and do it. He fele he had been given luck - luck to accomplish the impossible. And he had to make good so that the the guy who got his bullet would undestand. he wasn't religious, but he believed in paying his dues. That had always been his philosophy, and it still was"
- "Once is Not Enough" by Jacqueline Sussann

... now don't get me wrong. I am against the continued presence of the military in the middle east. I would like to find a peaceful two-state solution in Israel... and I think George W Bush is a bumbling imbecile with the luckiest swing in American politics... but there may be something to armed service if men were taught to think liek this....

Yes, war is always a nightmare, reaching back to however far there has been a record of how man can brutalize his neighbour and probably further. But somewhere on a larger scale there was always a sense of boundary. created by technology, religion or morals, probably a mix of all three, it kept civility in the pursuit for power... somewhere in the 20th century that was obliviated... and now there is only fear, and dirty plays, and sucker punches...

not sure why this popped out at me today when i was reading, but it did... anyway... back to our regularily scheduled program of fluff,oddities, narcissim and good tunes... i promise

... the jukebox conundrum...

last friday I was faced witha jukebox... and I froze... it isn't that I don't love music, know music... but in the moment... I couldn't remember a SINGLE song that I liked... not one... so I ended up picking "A Little Less Conversation" by Elvis Presley... the Oceans 11 remix.... Not that that isn't a fun song... I like it...

But if jukebox choices are to truly represent you... as Nick Hornby says... its what you like, not what you ARE like... than it isn't the song I would choose to communicate my self to the world....

And then I threw my back out... So I spent a lot of time on my back with a heating pad, staring at the ceiling with nothing to do but listen to Classic Rock on 181.fm The Eagle on my internet stereo thingamajig...

so I made a list of SONGS THAT ARE AWESOME... there was 1 rule. I had to hear the song played... If I heard it, and it was awesome... I wrote it down. For those who care to judge me by my musical taste but cannot decipher my upside down scrawl - Here's the list:

Don't Think Twice - Bob Dylan

Can I Get a Witness - Marvin Gaye

Do It Again - Steely Dan

Changes - David Bowie

Keep On Rocking Me Baby - Steve Miller Band

Tiny Dancer - Elton John

In The Air Tonight - Phil Collins

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Pat Benatar

Sweet Melissa - Allman Bros

Everyday People - Sly and the family Stone

Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen

Beast Of Burden - Rolling Stones

Any Way You Want it - Journey

Midnight Rambler - Rolling Stones

Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd

Saturday Night's Alright - Elton John (nearly disqualified for its recent high frequency repetitious presence in my life currently... but it still kinda kicks)

Copperhead Road - Steve Earle

The Break Up Song (They Don't Write 'Em) - Greg Kihn Band

Teenage Wasteland - The Who (Nearly disqualified for its relationship to CSI Miami and my nemesis David Caruso... but it kinda kicks)

Mother - Pink Floyd

Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen

... Les Collines...

So there's this chick that writes this website... http://www.thecherryblossomgirl.com.. I found it once when I was google image searching for images of cherry blossoms.

But I have since become majorly addicted. Its like the Parisian version of the Hills, except without the annoying plots, annoying characters and, best of all, no Spencer Pratt...

... Just pretty girls in pretty clothes, living a seeming life of leisure, and looking wicked cute doing it...

Plus she's French, which automatically gives her wicked street cred on all things awesome... mais non?

... Number9Dream...

Its funny... whenever i think about what i would do if i ever won the lottery - and chances are slim, i don't buy tickets - I don't think about the usual things first... oh no... no car, or dream vacation or triple a hockey team fill my head... i have always always always started with this fantasy...

From page 210 - Number9Dream by David Mitchell:

"I assume my tour is complete, but notice a slatted cupboard door at the end of the landing. Its knob twizzles uselessly, but it swings open anyway. Its shelves are not shelves, but steep stairs. A knotted rope hangs down to help you haul yourself up. On the third step my head hits the ceiling, which shifts. I push, and a crack of daylight opens as the plyboard trapdoor swings up. I was way wrong. This is better than a hiding place. I emerge into a library/study with the highest book population density i have ever come across. book walls, book towers, book avenues, book side streets. book spillages, book rubble. paperback books, hardback books, atlases, manuals, almanacs. nine lifetimes of books. enough books to build an igloo to hide in. the room is sentient with books. mirrors double and cube the books. A Great Wall of China quantity of books. Enough books to make me wonder if i am a book too. Light comes in through a triangular window. A sort of wickerwork light shade hangs down. Apart from the bookcases and sagging shelves the only item of furniture is an old-fashioned writing bureau with square holes to lose papers and bills in. My grandmother had the same sort. Still does I guess. On the writing bureau are two piles of paper - one white and blank as starched shirts, the other a manuscript laid in a special lacquer tray."

***********

On my FB profile I say that a book becomes one of my favourites when reading it feels like remembering rather than discovering... reading this was exactly what i meant by that... someone else found the words to describe something from my wildest imagination.

good book, worth a read...

You will like this book if you liked: Lost in Translation (sofia coppola); Ransom (jay mcinerney); anything by william gibson; pizzicato five

... summer gone....

an excerpt from David MacFarlane's Summer Gone (http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780676972801):

"The trailed over the red-brown path, around outcrops of granite and the sheltered clusters of wodden cabins, through the maze of juniper, and over the spine of the northern island to the little bay. Alone, well behind them, their counsellor followed.
"Most of them would not remember this. They would forget names and faces and voices. Things would go.
"But this was also true: every now and then, in one city or another, in high-rises, or townhouses, in unsatisfactory rented rooms, in expensive hotels, in deep suburban silences, alone, or with their unconsoling wives or lovers turning away from their empty arms, they would each dream about the path across the island
"They would know every rock and root and turn and deop. They would feel the weightless air, see the particular skein of a summer evening, smell the pine-needled turf of their racing footfall"


********


I have a path like that, that i can go to in my mind. I'm definitely a lucky girl

...hug and roll....

.... if you are of a certain age you have for shizz seen this clip....

It was a not-so-elegant to the age old question "but what about me?" when it comes to sleep and your special someone....

now, I do not have this problem at the moment.... (oh that how to accomodate a guy was my problem... i have enough trouble meeting one I even want to bring home) .... but a twitter exchange with Flashpunk this morning brought the longstanding problem up... and if i am being honest... i have some thoughts on the matter....

Its not that I don't enjoy a good cuddle... I like it as much as the next girl (well, maybe not as much... but i like it just fine, thank you very much). But I reserve it for naps, rainy afternoons or the afterglow (that lasts about 30 minutes tops....)

As far as sleeping goes.... I do it alone... I am the Lone Dreamer.... you can be my Tonto... but you need your own saddle. Maybe its because I move around in my sleep.... Maybe its because on occasion I have been known to unconsciously fart in the night (and no one wants you pressed up against that).... maybe its because on vacations as a kid my sister and I had to share a bed, and that girl is a KICKER!

But whatever the reasons... I don't see why you should go to all that trouble to sleep uncomfortably... because it always is... no matter whether its spooning, the shoulder roll,  the hug'n'roll or the superman... its never as comfortable as whatever position you end up in on your own... known as the pragmatic approach at the end of this video.

I have to say love one you're with... but there is no need to invest in the Love Mattress.... no matter how cool a design idea it may be....

... modern day barter system...

... I have a job, really... Its tough, in the modern day recesion, the age of salary freezes and position cuts, where cost of living increases have gone the way of the dinosaurs. I love my job, but the paycheque covers the essentials (read: rent and loan payments) but doesn't leave many dollars for much else.

But a resourceful girl as always I have found my way to circumvent. You know how they say a penny for your thoughts? Well, you can have mine for concert tickets, movie passes or free books.

The internet has created a multitude of sites that are open to content and willing to give you the experience if you are willing to share it with the masses. All you need is a basic grasp of grammar (very basic), a point of view and a little wit