There She Was

“...so you’re sure of it then?” 

‘Yes.’ The word came out like a sentence. I’ve never felt this way about any one or any thing before. My eyes shifted. I thought back to times that had already passed and felt myself exhale, reassured. For a tiny second I contemplated the fallibility of memory and the subtle disproof of having already accounted for self bias. I looked back at him. Well what do you think, what do you say?

“I think that you’ve come a long way, baby.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What is it that you like about her?”

‘How much time do you have?’ The second question had not yet answered the first, it was true, but sounded malicious and hung in the air. The man caught on quick. We’d seemingly just sat down, and yet the union already felt rushed. 

“Ok. How about the things that you don’t like about her?” I looked him in the eye. 

‘Only one comes to mind.’ 

An eyebrow raised, and the answer seemed to come quick. “Oh?” said the man, his skin for a moment creased in the corner of his eye, years of experience evident in the wrinkle that formed. “And what’s that?” The answer that came implicated us both. 

‘The drinking.’ 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So what make you think that you two won’t just take each other down?”

For the first time in my life it felt like i had all the right answers, yet i still felt powerless. ‘We’d be stronger together.’ I said, getting dizzy. I felt the room go in reverse. It was true, and i had been given enough time to think about, but what was also true was that when we were together i had not treated her as she deserved. The old man snapped his fingers in my face, instantly reviving me from the flashback. “So you have changed - but what about you has changed?” I had to internalize the question, to face it, re-live it and and become the answer again. ‘I had to find myself,’ i said, finally calm, ‘to learn how to love myself, and though i have bad days - i do.’ 

I felt dizzy again. My second thought was that yes, maybe i had finally grown up.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fast-forward to today. I remind myself that everything happens for a reason. I’ve been getting up earlier more naturally, yet still hungover. We all need projects to work on, and i feel that I’m a good project. I work on myself for a little bit thinking in my head about how this project will never end. I think back to previous projects - the things that i kept failing at when i tried to do them alone. I found that i just needed a little bit of help from someone that knew what to do, had done it before, overcome it and could kind of take me there and show me the right way, like a friend - in a friendly way. 

‘That’s what i think i can do for her’ i tell the old man as i get up to leave. I don’t wait for a response, but i know that he agrees. 

(( e. allweil 2018 ))

I'm a materialistic piece of shit (and i love it)

It's been a while. Some things have changed and yet other behaviour remains more consistent: I found out that I really, really like good looking shoes and find them sexy almost without fault. It beguiles me to this day that I haven't grown more feet - why would i continue buying more shoes?

Carl Hammoud, Everybody:

I've realized that half of the satisfaction i get from art comes from continuously attempting to lump little bits of everything together, as if behind the curtains of this giant benignity we call life i might discover some semblance of a plan.

I recently came upon Carl Hammoud through 12oz Prophet and i was reminded of a time i spent working for a racist Israeli selling piles of useless shit in a set of warehouses. Each day as the sun would set and the air would turn yellow i would revisit the horde of filth and catch it cast in a heavenly glow. For a few lonely minutes, the pile looked like a scene of heaven.

I also once worked at a library, which was a pleasant time that conjures less colourful metaphors.

I am reminded of both of those times in a happy sort of hindsight as i gaze into these very mindful pieces: The colour palette reminds me of DuChamp, the form reminds me of Samuel Bak and Ai Wei Wei, and parts of the imagery remind me of my good friend Magritte.

Fk Yr Morals!

Photoflow 2013

SQUASH BEEF

No, i’m not talking about a savory dish or a recipe on how to make one. I’m talking about the slang term for ‘get along already’. I came across a rather heartwarming story today of not just beef getting crushed or breaded with squash, but an exemplary artistic way of explaining oneself:

    Somewhere near the Bay Area in 1993 the graffiti artist Keep6 was involved ‘in a beef’ with the MBC crew. Keep6 threw up a giant piece that said ‘KEEPFUCKINGSIX’ [see picture] in his own wild style on the side of an appropriate building. RaiseOne of MBC kept and morphed Keep6’s letters into an equally big burner that read ‘RAISEFUCKINGONE’.

Fortunately Keep6 seems like a very understanding guy and immediately dropped the ego and the beef. Everyone likes a happy ending, so there.

Once i find pis of the RaiseOne piece i’ll throw them up here too.

Keep on keeping on. Six times forever, baby.

-e.

It is my moral duty to pass this on:

DAVID OREILLY & CO CREATED A WORLD THAT IS EXTERNAL TO OURS (according to them)


 [now in Werner Herzog's voice:]

BUT TO ME IT IS HAUNTINGLY SIMILAR TO OUR OWN

It's less than 20 minutes long.


THE EXTERNAL WORLD
A boy learns to play the piano.

And literally only for 'fucks sake':

AWARDS

Audience Award – Dead By Dawn Film Festival (2012)
Best Animation, Best Experimental – SOTW awards (2012)
Special Mention – Bolzano Short Film Festival (2011)
Best Short Film – Ljubljana Intl. Film Festival (2011)
Best Short Film – Anim’est IAFF Romania (2011)
Grand Prix – Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (2011)
Audience award – Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (2011)
“Most Actual Animation” Award – Multivision Festival (2011)
Audience award – Uppsala Intl Short Film Festival (2011)
Best Contemporary / Experimental Short  – Sapporo Shortfest (2011)
CRYPTON Best Sound Award – Sapporo Shortfest (2011)
Grand Prix “Golden Kuker” – The International AnimationFilm Festival Sofia (2011)
Best Direction Award – ANIMAGE – III International Animation Festival (2011)
Best International Short (Independent) – Playgrounds Festival (2011)
Best Short Film Award – Anim’est IAFF Romania (2011)
Golden Gate Award – Best Animation – San Francisco Film Festival (2011)
Best film in category “10-50 minutes” – KROK (2011)
Grand Prix – 25FPS Festival (2011)
Audience Award – 25FPS Festival (2011)
Grand Prix – Fantoche Film Festival (2011)
Grand Prix – Silhouette Short Film Festival (2011)
Jury Special Mention – AyeAye Film Festival (2011)
European Youth Jury Special Mention – Aye Aye F.Festival (2011)
Special Achievement Award – ANIMANIMA (2011)
Audience Award – ANIMANIMA (2011)
Best International Animation – Anibar (2011)
Best Short Animation – Guanajuato Intl Film Festival (2011)
Jurys Special Mention – Melbourne Animation Festival (2011)
Best Animation – Tabor Film Festival (2011)
Special Mention – Curtocircuito Festival (2011)
Vox Veronicae Award – Tabor Film Festival (2011)
Audience Award – Vienna Independent Shorts (2011)
ASIFA Austria Award – Vienna Independent Shorts (2011)
Award of Distinction – Prix Ars Electronica (2011)
Grand Prix – Intl. Festival of Animated Film Stuttgart (2011)
Golden Gate Award – Best Animation – SFIFF (2011)
Grand Prix – Hallucinations Collectives (2011)
Best Short Film – Obliqua Section – Mecal (2011)
Adobe Award – Regensburg Short Film Week (2011)
Best Animation – Tampere Film Festival (2011)
International Audience Award – Minimalen Film Festival (2011)
GoShort – Best Animation (2011)
IFTA – Best Animation (2011)
Canal + Award – Clermont Ferrand (2011)
Honorary Mention – Sundance (2011)
Best Animation/Yoram Gross Award – Flickerfest (2011)
Public Award – S. de la Cinémathèque Québécoise (2010)
Youth Award for best short film – Gijon Film festival (2010)
Berlin Award – Interfilm (2010)
Grand Prize – Kurzfilmtage Winterthur (2010)
Special Mention – Cork Film Festival (2010)
Grand Prize – Ottawa Animation Festival (2010)
Best Experimental Film – Rio De Janeiro SFF (2010)
Special Mention – Rio De Janeiro SFF (2010)
Special Mention – Intl. Film Festival Bratislava (2010)
EFA Nomination – Venice Film Festival (2010)

The Secret is that Radio Waves are (Invisible) Light

"As part of our species’ search for intelligent life in the universe, the United States flung a Pioneer space probe containing a graphic message far out beyond our solar system in 1972. The scientists associated with it hoped that it would be intercepted by some galactic beachcomber after it left our corner of the cosmos. Newscasters speculated upon how it would find its way to some distant planetary system to be turned over in prehensile limbs we cannot imagine. 

Of course, Marconi had already done the same. Seventy-seven years earlier, a small percentage of the magic light from his first radio broadcast did not get reflected back to Earth but passed on through the ionosphere and escaped into outer space. Unlike sound, light is capable of spanning the void. It takes eleven days for sound to cover the distance light travels in a second. From 1895 onward then, the incoming light from distant stars has had to pass through our outward-bound radio wave transmissions. 

Imagine the excitement that will be generated when some lone radio ham, on a distant planet orbiting a different sun from ours, one night just happens to turn on and tune in to Earth. What a surprise will unfold, because it is all there - the entire history of the twentieth century as well as music since the Renaissance. Our new radio audience will be able to listen to all our electromagnetic radio transmissions falling on their planet as light from their sun falls on ours. They will hear our extraordinary talents and momentous events as they arrive encoded in these waves. Out somewhere beyond Alpha Centauri, there exists in an ectoplasmic state the messages of Amos and Andy, Adolf Hitler, and Bishop Fulton Sheen, and the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Bing Crosby. Beginning in the Renaissance, music was recorded through notation. Because of it, the constraints of time were overcome. Now as a result, we can listen to the ensuing centuries’ music. Radio has superseded the constraints of space as well because by converting music to light, Bach and Mozart will resound in outer space forever.

Anyone receiving our early broadcasts would be tuned to musical trends and historical events that have already happened here on Earth. Because of the time it takes light to traverse space, they will not know the outcome; having to wait in nail-biting suspense, like children at a Saturday matinee, to find out who ultimately wins World War II or the answer to the crucial question of whether we will ultimately destroy ourselves in an environmental apocalypse. 

With the advent of television we have dramatically increased the outpouring of light-as-information. Now our stellar audience can see what we look like as well as how we sound. The soap opera called the Twentieth Century has expanded out from Earth in a bubble of ghostly light. If, as some astronomers have speculated, there are many different planets out there capable of containing intelligent life, more and more planets will tune in as our programs fan out across space, and soon music and our story will be heard and seen at different times in different places from one end of the universe to the other. "

-Leonard Shlain 

Excerpt from 'Art & Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time and Light'

FRESH FREE BEAT HEAVY MUSIC

If you like FUNK and HIP HOP and OLD SCHOOL FRESH BEATS.

Just stream this and be careful from the Donovan song on, trust me!

We Funk Radio
http://www.wefunkradio.com/show/2012-03-16#play_aa



(( amazing artwork 'Flower Pt 2' by Stereoflow ))

I Don't Know [RIP]

Like everything
that they put out
that was,
this was
heavy.

And fresh.

 As soon as i saw the headline
 I knew,
 I knew i’d remember.




 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rDklqPG5pU

He's Baaaaaaaack!

GP: "Before MTV. I was hanging out with Matt Groening and we were talking about being fans of Frank Zappa, and we really admired the way that Frank Zappa brought ideas into the marketplace, into children’s and teenagers rooms, with reading lists and so on. We were interested in being people like that."

GP: "I would say my friend Matt Groening has entered into media and made a gigantically powerful platform for leftist politics on a conservative station... If I go to Paris and turn on the TV, there’s “The Simpsons”. If I change the channel, it’s “Futurama”... he has done this incredible job of infiltrating media."

&

JW: "And I was an upper-middle-class Jewish prince. I think drugs are great. Quote me on that. I think drugs are great. But only when you use them a little bit, for pleasure."

via: BombSite

http://bombsite.com/issues/1000/articles/6566

Excerpt from the cover of Bidoun Magazine #25

"In July 2010, i dreamed that i was flying
over downtown Cairo in a one-person
helicopter made of glass. Like a Segway,
in the air. And the entire city was flooded
to the level of the billboards but the lights
were all still on. It was post-apocalyptic.
There was a sinkhole in the center of Tahrir
Square that the water was rushing into.
And i was afraid of flying too close to it.
So i flew up to Muqattam, where the water
was rushing over the cliff, creating this
kind of waterfall, into this tiny cave. And inside
there was a ten-foot-tall military man, like
twice the size of regular person, sitting in
a chair, and i spent all night just chewing
on his ankles, punching him - he was like
a clown doll, made of rubber, but he was
taunting me, i could hear his voice inside"...

El4D - Daydreams

Check out EL4D for more songs, free album downloads, etc.


10/18/11 El4D - Daydreams Album UPDATE!!

(This is a little bit about the album i've just finished, Daydreams)

It’s 2011, almost October, and i’ve just turned 24. I’ve finally accomplished something that i’ve been meaning to do for many years, something that i have wanted to get done before i died, and something that i’ve learned a lot from and have had a lot of fun doing: the completion of my first album - the fantastic, psychedelic, and often times downtempo, Daydreams.

Daydreams is a collage of unorthodox songs that began as a set of conceptual ideas, guidelines, and thoughts that slowly blossomed into and ultimately became the album that you hear today. Almost each song has its own unique history, from Remembering the Walk, which began as an experiment in ambience, to R0DNEY K1NG, which turned out to be a giant glacier sliding slowly to an almost complete stop, in Las Vegas, of course.
[Strings] was borne out of the albums’ last track, the aptly titled [Remember Me] Now. I challenged myself as a musician to almost completely refrain from using the musical instruments that i was familiar with, and instead, to try to compose a song, not from the ground up, but from samples that i had amassed, grouped together selectively, and then cut and had my way with. It was like building an entirely new image that had never been seen before, out of things that had. I used some of the puzzle pieces from this box and some from that box – rather obviously, some of them had trouble fitting.

[Strings] emerged out of the acute strain of chaos that ultimately and abruptly caps off the album. It expands upon the dimension of [Remember Me] Now, and becomes an invitation to one of Calvino’s lesser known electronic cities. This one, existing next to one of todays digital clouds, somewhere between discs and processors.
Many songs have doubles, parallels, different avenues, versions and ‘perverted versions’. I didn’t know what to do with them at first, i just kept trying to explore these different ‘environments in sound’, these ‘places in audio’, these words that better describe worlds. I drove myself mad, playing around, exploring, hoping to ‘find’ the proverbial one. Sometimes it happened. Other times it happened twice*.

Often times I felt like i influenced my music too much for my own good. I wanted a new challenge, some new ‘rules’. I had all of these old toys, and no one to play with. So i attempted to do something which i’ve never been very good at, namely working with other people:

Philosophengang in German means ‘the philosophers walk’. I think that may have been what Nietzsche called it, i’m not so sure. On yesterdays walk, Toby Bryan was our philosopher. I attempted to be the ground he tread.

Monsieur! with Veronica Karrer has always been one of my favourite stories in song: I played Veronica some innocence on the guitar and within a few minutes she produced the eloquent piano lead that will never change. The song, in it’s infancy, reminded me of a place i had never before been. Monsieur!

And I’ll say this: I’m not one for religion, but my friend is a prophet. On a road trip to Arizona a few years back, Elijah introduced Veronica and myself to Alan Watts. We had enough time to make it through six or seven CD’s of his and whenever i heard a line that i particularly liked, i wrote down the track number, disc number, timestamp, and a few words to help me remember. These notes inevitably became Alan, Revived.

This leads me to my good friend, teacher, and roommate, David Thomas. David is featured on Cubby T, Introspective Tea, and Remember Me [Now]. Even before David ever hit an electronic drum pad that had been connected to my laptop, and even before either of us ever knew he would, David had been one of my greatest assets in terms of musical help. It was as if he sold his soul to the devil and got something that he could never repeat, but could convey using his whole body. Without the devil knowing, he threw a few moves my album's way.

I want to thank Chloe Myaskovsky for her amazing artwork - her painting doesn’t look like my identical twin brother, Yuval, but rather it looks like me, Elad. This is according to my mother, our mother, which is saying a lot.

I want to thank Miles Gussin (and David Thomas again), for teaching me that silly word that is as hard to spell as it is to learn, ‘rhythm’. Miles would bring his setup over to my apartment and we’d each stare into our screens working on music day and night, stopping just long enough to help each other out, listen to each others work, and stay high. It’s certainly worth mentioning that in the beginning Miles and i did not have laptops. He would bring his giant computer tower over and i had room on my desk with a separate flatscreen, mouse, keyboard, and cables for him to work on. That’s dedication. There’s more i can say, but Miles knows what’s up.

I want to thank Monica Finc for so many things that i really don’t even know where to begin. She saw me in some of my best and worst times musically. She heard my songs almost as many times as I heard them, and yet she always encouraged me to continue, reminding me when i forgot. She continues to remind me today, and probably still will tomorrow, and that’s just her reminding me. I hope i give her as much as she gives me.

I want to thank wholly everyone for wholly everything. My family in particular is owed an undeniable kudos. You will each be thanked individually, with time and as we meet. Thank you all.

-e.a. 10/10/11

Lover.

Bukowski, on Los Angeles:

"I'm here to begin with and then you build around that. Or I build around it. I've lived most of my life here and I've simply gotten used to the place. I can't even get lost, sober. And just the other day I found out where the L.A. zoo was. And the women here seem to love old men. I've never seen women like that. At the same time, I'm suicidal and there's the smog to help me out."

Humans, humans, humans..

"From the archeological record, it's inferred that Neanderthals evolved in Europe or western Asia and spread out from there, stopping when they reached water or some other significant obstacle. (During the ice ages, sea levels were a lot lower than they are now, so there was no English Channel to cross.) This is one of the most basic ways modern humans differ from Neanderthals and, in Pääbo's view, also one of the most intriguing. By about forty-five thousand years ago, modern humans had already reached Australia, a journey that, even mid-ice age, meant crossing open water. Archaic humans like Homo erectus "spread like many other mammals in the Old World," Pääbo told me. "They never came to Madagascar, never to Australia. Neither did Neanderthals. It's only fully modern humans who start this thing of venturing out on the ocean where you don't see land. Part of that is technology, of course; you have to have ships to do it. But there is also, I like to think or say, some madness there. You know? How many people must have sailed out and vanished on the Pacific before you found Easter Island? I mean, it’s ridiculous. And why do you do that? Is it for the glory? For immortality? For curiosity? And now we go to Mars. We never stop."

-Svante Pääbo (Swedish evolutionary biologist)


Article

Po'em

Berkeley, how fun
How similar you are
too.

[Bukowski, and crew]

So similar,
that street brew.
That jazz trumpet drifting
cross the electric pond reflecting,

You,
eclipsing.
You

[And..]

Berkeley, World;
How i have loved..

Familiar to,
familiar as
my brain,
under
stood
you.

"Kaiser is where God lives. I am not so sure it is at churches."

Mario S.'s Yelp Reviews
http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=TgfvhtGxMKjlzLTuq6Hb4g



Oliveto Cafe

I met a first date, Craigslist-derivative, from among the many responses, mostly naked pictures of women derived from one or maybe two men, I guess, who acquire e-mail addresses. I can't quite figure that scam. But, she had long flowing black-brown hair with blue eyes; she wore a gray and white plaid trench with an inexactly similar Gap scarf, part American Indian and Nordic. When she moved, it was like she was scattering pixie dust. Her coral-colored finger nail polish and the smoke that was her hair dazzled. The first thing I noticed was the open drink menu, turned to an early page. It said: "Negroni," which was exactly what I wanted. She ordered a Moscato. Hers was lighter, a bit like Lillet Rouge and mine was viscously thicker and stronger. We immediately enjoyed each other's company and the drinks made us loose and giddy. It is hard to be serious when someone seems to like you. You open up, say just about anything, and you may even read a poem to her. It was the poem I read at the Calistoga Inn and then another one, and she didn't seem to get it. I guess you have to read poems to know what they mean, but I am not like that. You don't have to know the meaning of every word, but you hear them. There's enough of the sense of where something is going to know that there's a wonderful world opening up. So, I stopped. Maybe the woman who was correcting papers at the other table heard me and could appreciate what made me want to be a writer. When I was in intermediate school, I sat in the Kaimuki Public Library listening to T.S. Eliot read "The Wasteland" on a record player. We ordered the beet salad with almonds and watercress or arugula with a subtle dressing. It cannot be beat, pardon the pun. She ordered and got the cannelloni, I the hen. I am allergic to wheat, so I didn't want any of hers. My hen was moist, glazed over with herbs and oil. It was hot and perfectly cooked. I loved the stuffing. There were two more drinks for her, and I had a glass of red I let the waiter pick. I had planned to say: "What you would like, but by then I was less articulate. The man, who made my drink, wore a black shirt. He had a moustache and beard. His glasses were black-rimmed. He was strong and reminded me of a close friend, who had the same smile. It's as if he had traveled the world and he had seen everything and the Negroni was a reflection of his wisdom. And the waiter, I bet Spanish, thinner, I think long hair, and beard. I remember his modesty, and respectfulness. How he made me feel was like I was royalty. I want to tell both of them now, how good I felt, how safe to be myself with this woman, who was making me feel good. Everything the waiter did was kind. The bartender was professional when he brought the drinks. There was no flaw, no complaint, only the sense of being in a fine room with generous friends. In all, the meal and drinks were about $70+. I left $20. It was not just a light meal; it was being in a room with people who made you feel better than you might feel about yourself.

Silver Linings