Strawberry Swing

This is my new favourite video:

Lyrics:

They were sitting
They were sitting on the strawberry swing
Every moment was so precious

They were sitting
They were talking under strawberry swing
Everybody was for fighting
Wouldn’t wanna waste a thing

Cold, cold water bring me round
Now my feet won’t touch the ground
Cold, cold water what ya say?
When it’s such…
It’s such a perfect day
It’s such a perfect day

I remember
We were walking up to strawberry swing
I can’t wait until the morning
Wouldn’t wanna change a thing

People moving all the time
Inside a perfectly straight line
Don’t you wanna curve away?
When it’s such…
It’s such a perfect day
It’s such a perfect day

Now the sky could be blue
I don’t mind
Without you it’s a waste of time
Could be blue
I don’t mind
Without you it’s a waste of time

Could be blue,
Could be grey
Without you I’m just miles away
Could be blue
I don’t mind
Without you it’s a waste of time

 

Dig out your soul in the streets

Hey ya’ll! (always wanted to say that… as if I was from TX)

So I was just reading about how Oasis (minus Noel) decided to release some of their new songs from “Dig out your soul“. What they did was get a group of street musicians fron NYC and tought them the songs before anyone else heard them.

As one of the musicians said, that’s where the songs would ultimalely end up, so why not start there. You can see them working together in the short documentary, directed by The Malloys, As Liam states, they’re all in the same boat (a few dollars appart… but same bote nonetheless…).

It’s very interesting, if you like Oasis, or if you enjoy music in general, it’s an original and amazing iniciative.

For me it’s a way of recognizing the talent these musicians have, that can match that of worldwide recognized artists such as Oasis.

 

The best things come in small packages…

I have a confession to make: I am addicted… to TED talks.
I just watched one, by Willard Wigan. He’s a sculptor from England, who’s first work was a small hostel for ants… and from then on, he’s made sculptures that fit the head of a pin.

He can’t read or write, but he found an amazing way of expressing himself.  Makes you think about the truth behind the theory of multiple intelligences, right?.

This seems to be therapeutic for him, he states “teachers made me fell small, so that made me feel like nothing. I’m trying to prove to the world that nothing doesn’t exist”

Here’s the talk:

(If you find that too long to watch, take a look at this, from abc news:

Amazing hu?

Here’s a gallery with some of his work.

 

Why people believe strange things

Michael Shermer is the founder of Skeptic Magazine , excecutive director of the Skeptic Society, etc. As he phrases it: “people call us the ‘debunkers’ (…) let’s face it, there’s a lot of ‘bunk’”. The following video is definitely worth a look, it’s from TED Talks, filmed in 2006. He makes an excellent point, and is interesting and funny while doing it, see for yourselves (watch it all! near the end you can finally listen the satanic message in Stairway to Heaven and see the miracle of Marge Simpson) :

 

To see oneself in buttoned eyes.

 

I just finished watching Coraline, a movie by Henry Selick - also known for directing The Nightmare Before Chrsitmas – and I must say, I loved it. I’ve been wanting to watch this for a long time: I am a hugh Burton fan, and If Henry Selick worked with him, that’s enough for me. I must admit I adore watching animated movies and feeling like a kid again.

 

However, I don’t thing this is a kiddie movie. First of all, it has a dark side, I would even say sinister.

Basically, Coraline moves to a new city, she is bored, her parents ignore her and she wishes they were different. But as the saying goes, “be careful with what you wish for”. It came true: she goes through a small door in her house, and meets her “other mom”: she cooks her breakfast for dinner, gives her presents, everything she wanted. Her “other dad” also seems perfect at first. However, both have buttong for eyes. Which I don’t think is a minot detail: she cannot see her reflection in their eyes, she does not see what object she is for the mom.

 

(Scary, isn’t it?)

Maybe this is just a coincidence, but it was very interesting to me how the other father is seen riding a mechanical praying mantis – an insect who, after copulation, the female bites off the head of the male (sexy, right?). For me it goes in paralell with the devouring mom: the other mom swallows a key, one of the characters mentions that she might “eat Coraline”, and by the end of the movie de “other dad” is completely emasculated and subdued to the females desires.

It felt exactly like the mouth of the crocodile Lacan talked about: there needs to be a “stick” (the falus) that stops the mother from devouring her child, which is, at first conceives as an object meant to complete her. If we don’t come to this world as an object of desire for someone, it’s impossible for us to become subjects. But we mustn’t stay attached to that alienated position, our mother (or whoever plays that role in our lives) must know when and how to let go. It’s not about loving too much or too little, it’s about just enough. As Winicott said, the “good enough mom”.

I digress. Back to Coraline.

Another theme that is very present is desire. She believes she can have happiness in that paralell world, but she finds that is not so: to be complete is an imposibility, if don’t lack anything, we desire for nothing, and what would drive us to live then? I wish I always have a desire to drive me.

I had a lot of thoughts while watching the movie… I’ll update this later if I remember!! But to sum up: watch it, if any of what I said makes sense or if you think I am totally delusional, let me know!

 

Prop 8 – the Musical

This is brilliant, from Funnyordie: “Prop 8 – The Musical”

It’s on Youtube as well:

 

Everyday life is funny…

Lev Yilmaz is the creator of Tales of Mere Existence, he has the rare ability of putting what everyone goes through and has thought, at least once. Or maybe it’s just me, and a few other dozen people… you be the judge:

And if that didn’t do it for you, this should:

 

Like that? I am holding the book “Sunny Side Down”. If you liked those, you will LOVE the book.  I highly recommend it!

One more, enjoy!:

 

Designer Masks

I am seriously thinking it would be a great investment to make a line of designer Masks. With drawings, words, flags, etc. Somebody has to win with this outbreak, right?

 

“You are…”

“You are beautiful”

“You are so smart!”

“You are Jewish”

“You are MY daughter”

What if I don’t want to be those things? Do we even have a choice?

I woun’t keep you in suspense: Yes, we do.

True: at first we become alienated by that which the Others (our mother, our father, sitter, whoever takes the role of that significant Other) say we are, pointing at a seemingly unified image in the mirror, and we become that. That is a lovable image.

Or maybe not… maybe they tell us we are useless, ugly, etc. We can become alienated to that image as well. Even though it does not seem like a good thing, it still gives us a place in the world.

To make a long story short, we reside in that spot someone pointed out for us for  a while. Maybe forever if we are confortable. But some of us find that there’s something odd about it, that not everything about us fits into that image we built, or was built for us.

We might have, what they call “Panick attacks”, symptoms, etc. But we know womething doesn’t add up. That’s when that, ”I know who I am” we used to fall back on, turns into, “I don”t know who I am”, and then a question.

Some people answer it through psychoanalysis, some people do it by themselves through art, or other type of acts. But we come out of that process stronger, no dounbt about that, we might not get all the answers, but we know we can’t have them all. The fiction is over and we can just be.

 

We are here!

Hey everyone!

Long time no read… I know, school, work, exams. Things have been looking pretty good from here.

From where you ask?

HERE:

What? can’t you see me? That’s fine, I can’t see you either! ha!

SO I was just forwarded this amazing video by the great Carl Sagan:

Here’s a part from his speech:

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe:, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

He was pretty damn smart, wasn’t he?

Just something to think about… I’ll elaborate on that later, gotta run!(literally)

Thank you for reading, whoever you are… feel free to introduce yourself (please do!), so I know I’m not just some crazy person “talking to myself”, and I only a crazy person singing to myself.