THE SYSTEMATIC METHOD OF ACCURATELY MEASURING THE EXISTENCE OF AMBIGUITY

"Do not admire yourself. Do not let yourself shut up in a revolutionary school that has become conventional. Do not allow commercial speculation. Do not seek official glory. Draw your inspiration only from life." - Francis Picabia

The above quote from the French poet and artist, Francis Picabia, was a beautiful little insight i gleaned from a website called ventralisgolden.com in a document titled "THE SYSTEMATIC METHOD OF ACCURATELY MEASURING THE EXISTENCE OF AMBIGUITY" I will never cease to be amazed at the overwhelming ammount of wisdom and artistic people that are able to express themselves on the internet; although this overabundance comes with its own set of intricate issues. It takes quite the determined spirit, networking savvy nature, and watchful eye to keep up on all of the art that is out in the world in our current time.

The Painted Word

Today i sat down and read "The Painted Word" by Tom Wolfe; an extremely entertaining and informative piece of literature that discusses the myths and men of modern art. I came across this video and it really made me think, especially after reading about how the idea of art has morphed and changed so much in the past 100 years, that these men are true artists. They have put in their time and care so much about their craft; whether its accepted by the members of "high society" is immaterial. Although Tom Wolfe was obviously speaking about another group of artists i believe this passage from the painted word speaks volumes for the men documented in this video.....

"They were like a real underground, for a change- in hiding this time not from that rather metaphysical menace, the bourgeoisie, but from their own comrade bohemian drillmasters, the aforementioned "shouting dogmatists" of the left."-Tom Wolfe

David Ryan Adams

I just can't stop watching this.

ps: check out those plaid pants :]

Coney Island Dream

I think this is simply beautiful.

my new years resolution

So.....my new years resolution is that i started a new blog which will contain a short (or long) review of every movie i watch this year, no matter how embarassing.

I'm pretty excited about the outcome. Hope i can keep it up. I watch so many movies; so i'm thinking it will be quite the task.

waynecoyne.

2009 Flaming Lips & Stardeath and White Dwarfs - Borderline from George Salisbury on Vimeo.

"We love it when we make mistakes that are better than something you could think up" -wayne coyne

The Ethics of Elfland

""I found the whole modern world talking scientific fatalism; saying that everything is as it must always have been, being unfolded without fault from the beginning. The leaf on the tree is green because it could never have been anything else. Now, the fairy-tale philosopher is glad that the leaf is green precisely because it might have been scarlet. He feels as if it had turned green an instant before he looked at it." - Chesterton

My Name is Asher Lev

I just finished My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. Such a brilliantly composed piece of literature, i haven't read anything from Potok since i first read his book The Chosen in middle school. I'm so thankful i picked this book off the shelves in Powell's.

A couple of highlight quotes:

"Sometimes I think it is not wise to grow too old......But I am not aware that we are given a choice in the matter."

- Jacob Kahn

"But it would have made me a whore to leave it incomplete. It would have made it easier to leave future work incomplete. It would have made it more and more difficult to draw upon that additional aching surge of effort that is always the difference between integrity and deceit in a created work. I would not be the whore to my own existence. Can you understand that? I would not be the whore to my own existence"

- Asher Lev

"Now there was ice and darkness inside me. I could feel the cold darkness moving slowly inside me.I could feel our darkness. It seemed to me then that we were brothers, he and I, that we both knew lands of ice and darkness. His had been in the past; mine was in the present. His had been outside himself; mine was within me. Yes, we were brothers, he and I, and I felt closer to him at that moment than to any other human being in all the world."

- Asher Lev

I need to get a hold of the sequel to this book immediately.......
Oh, and while i was reading the final chapter of this book i was listening to the self titled Arcade Fire EP - Vampires/Forest Fires couldn't have fit better as the soundtrack to the final portion of this novel.

Black Balloon

The Kills - Black Balloon from kenneth cappello on Vimeo.

i love how Alison Mossheart always looks incredible.

She's one of the few people i could honestly say, i'd love

to steal her entire wardrobe.

Not to mention i think she's a total badass for just pickin up the

slack for sick and voiceless Jack White on the Raconteurs show.......

how the brilliance of the Dead Weather was born. sigh.

Monsters of Folk

I really love the Monsters of Folk Album.

"I want a verb and you give me a noun"

Finally watched the film Lymelife, I'd been looking forward to it since i saw the preview for it early last year. Watched it last night and was honestly a tad disappointed. I suppose i had far to high of expectations built up for it.

ilovekieranculkin

(especially after The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys)

.....But the Culkin Brothers are in it; So I couldn't be let down to drastically. Their is just something deeply fascinating and darkly attractive about that family.

Oh.
And Yesterday.
After much sleep deprivation and 40 oz. of black coffee
i was provoked by a friend to write a limerick after me pointing out that my limbs weren't half as jittery as my brain.

Here it is.

Hands clasped around a Steamy Brew
Brightening Ones outlook Anew

Energy and Inspiration appear to abound
Suddenly it all comes crashing down

Now I'm just jittery through and through
Birthed from boredom, this limerick for you.

I've Got You & You've Got Me

this video just makes my heart melt. I try to pretend i'm not a sap, but I
definitely am.

Content Was Always My Favorite Colour

JUST FOUND OUT THEY ARE PLAYING HERE TOMORROW!

"Charity thinketh no evil"

started reading the Confidence-Man: his masquerade today.....it's going to prove to be quiet a challenging read, but i'm really enjoying it.

oh. and i'm loving this photo shoot like none other right now.

"Man is a Mystery"

This morning i finally finished the Brothers Karamazov.

It was quite the journey..... I don't know if i'll feel quite complete

without this book in my purse. I've been toting it

around and picking away at its
dense literary matter for almost a year now.

But i'm sure i'll be looking back to it on my

shelf constantly, it's become rather a journal,

covered in notes and marred with many underlined sections.

I'll always cherish this novel.

back on the road.....pilgrims regress

"Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like: but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things: full of melancholy and indisposition, unpleasing to themselves?"

- Francis Bacon

One Pulse More Of Firm Endeavor

" I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with the roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but the solidest thing we know. For now, after so many ages of experience, what do we know of nature, or of ourselves? Not one step has man taken toward the solution of the problem of his destiny. In one condemnation of folly stand the whole universe of men. But the sweet sincerity of joy and peace, which i draw from this alliance with my brother's soul, is the nut itself wherof all nature and all thought is but the husk and shell."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

i was just perusing through Emerson's thoughts on friendship that i have in my book of his essays and poems. Friendship is synonomous with tough love & it is worth every ounce of pain and turned cheek we must endure, if it is rooted in truth. True friendship will stand the test of time..........time will ensure trial by fire to prove its tenacity.

But in the same breath....Emerson also simultaneously contradicts himself

" All association must be a compromise, and, what is worst, the very flower and aroma of the flower of each of the beatiful natures disappears as they approach each other. What a perpetual dissapointment is actual society, even of the virtuous and gifted."

To hold the highest of standards, yet be humble enough to know one's own faults and forgiving enough to graciously accept the shortcomings of others.

This is friendship.

The Saddest Circle is a Square

i have a special place in my heart for ryan adams.

He knew what not to do....that's what he did do.

David Byrne is a creative genius....he paved the way for so many incredible performers. He isn't afraid of being eccentric, he embraces it and in doing so blows everyone else out of the water.

my favorite part of the stop making sense show.

arcade fire makes me happy.

The Suicide of Thought

"And there is no more subtle truth than that of the everyday phrase about a man 'having his heart in the right place.' It involves the idea of normal proportion; not only does a certain function exist, but it is rightly related to other functions."
- G.K. Chesterton

An excerpt from Orthodoxy, which just so happened to be on my nightstand when i woke up. I had underlined this passage when reading it at some point earlier this summer. I love how Chesterton uses very physical metaphors to describe something divinely profound, in the same fashion of his creator.

humor me.

All i have to say, is that i just want seth cohen's character in the OC to materialise and be my boyfriend. Great cinema, indie film, and foreign pictures are constant fixtures in my entertainment catalog......but, i do love the OC (translation Adam Brody). guilty pleasure.

“A whisper can be stronger, as an atom is stronger, than a whole mountain.”

" I fell in love with black, it contained all color. It wasn't a negation of color. Black is the most aristocratic color of all. You can be quiet and it contains the whole thing"
- Louisa Nevelson {1899-1988}

I just saw a piece of her art at the olympic sculpture park in seattle, this quote was on the placard next to her art.

unmitigated tolerance breeds mediocrity

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. "
– Mere Christianity

if i could i'd fold myself away like a card table..

my favorite alternate version ryan adams has ever done of his own songs.......it's so drastically different from the song on easy tiger.

and i can't stop listening to Dear Chicago. I get such a good visual of him lighting up a cigarette and saying "that's impossible to do"

Arcade fire.....

click on the title to watch an incredible live version of neon bible and wake up.