life

You are currently browsing articles tagged life.

I am stuffing your mouth
with your promises
and watching you vomit them
out upon my face.”

Anne Sexton wrote that. I’ve blogggged it before. It’s one of the most perfect pieces of words brought together I have ever read so here it is again & again. Amsterdam and its constant downpours are almost over, a few more days until I have to go back to Toronto, and then I fly home (??), fly back to my city where I have no place to live, no potential roommates and the second year of my MA to start/finish. I have no home in Toronto, just memories. Where am I going? Maybe having no place to go opens me up to go anywhere, to have the potential for everything.

The shot of the tree was in France and the plane is from when I visited Shiphol. Now I am here in Jordaan in the centre of Amsterdam. Everything can change in the split of a second, just like that. Words can shatter whole worlds, whole conceptions of knowledge, of what is and what isn’t. Words can do it all but they canot solely repair the damage they are able to do. No, much more than that needs to happen.

Maybe the sun will come out again before I go? Do you know I don’t want to go back, I don’t miss anything in Toronto anymore. I want to stay here, everything makes sense here, my life makes sense here. I am alone a lot and sometimes with some people that maybe will be my friends, they are sweet to me. I have a suitcase, ok I brought two of them, my camera, my Wacom and my laptop. People move across oceans for so many reasons, I have already moved, why do I have to return?  Amsterdam has been so good to me, has nourished me, frustrated me, nearly killed me, but has taught me to give to it too. I love you Amsterdam, I love all you have done for me this summer.

Tags: , , ,

This weekend Toronto unwillingly hosted the G20. Although I have been physically in Amsterdam since Saturday, I have not left Toronto, glued to Twitter and the Internet reading obsessively about everything that is happening from all sides. Reasearching what the G20 actually does(n’t) do, and the history of it all, trying to figure out how easily meaningful discourse about the Summit gets obscured by hysteria from both sides. My write up on being a spectator from abroad is slowly coming to fruition. I need to take a few days to digest my interaction with the Summit almost exclusively online.

I am living with Rico, who runs IChione, and his family for the summer in their attic in Amstelveen. It is strange to have a peer that also has a 14 year old daughter. It is an interesting negotiation for me as a student but also an adult. At 23, Rico was on his way to be an ordained monk but then his daughter was conceived and he realized his way into it could not occur because he’d have to leave them both behind.

Here are some of what I saw yesterday in my new neighbourhood playing around with my UV lens. Flickr.

.

MUSIC: Also, a few days ago one of my favorite music people in the world, Loops Haunt, posted a mix called Strange Fruit Vol 1. It has many wonderful old love songs on it. You should download it and have him be in your life too. OK? OH! And I just found out that he’s playing StekkerFest in Utrecht on August 14! I am there! Maybe this special person I know can come too? For his biiiiiirthday?

Tags: , ,

I AM SO BUSY! Who isn’t busy though right? Always “busy.” On Friday I am off to Amsterdam to study Digital Methods at the University of Amsterdam for two months. I have been packing my life up for the last few days because I am also moving out of my apartment. The Skylight House has kept me for over three years. That’s the longest I’ve lived anywhere since I moved out on my own ten years ago. Mostly, it’d be several months here and there. I am uneasy because as soon as I moved in here, I told myself I will stay here until something really large happens upon my life to totally change it. I don’t see it (now?) I’m putting all of my things in a warehouse for the summer until I return in September, when I will attempt to find a place to live as fast as possible. For now, I am taking much too long packing. It is so impossible to efficiently move when you get lost in recalling and remembering all the sentimental junk you’ve been keeping that must be read and looked over! Teenage love letters are a crucial interjection to the exhaustion of sifting papers.

70 days in Europe. Summer in Europe (again). IF everything works out, I’ll stay a bit longer to go to Sun & Bass. Maybe I can sneak my way in to VJ somehow. I want to befriend some VJ’s and people who play with video in Amsterdam! WHOA! I am actually wanting to make friends?! Are you a Dutch friend? I need to be shaken up so much. The stagnation of familiarity has put up too many walls too high. I might go take the train to see some people while I am there if I can find some extra monies.

Things I want to accomplish there (while studying and raving):

  • learn Max/MSP
  • my Thesis Project Proposal
  • bike around the northern Holland coast
  • read a book in French (even a short one)
  • go stalking in Warsaw
  • re-form the whole way I approach taking photos
  • make contacts for a PhD
  • make a short film

Everything is in flux at this moment. I wonder if I will be able to produce an original piece of new media work to complete my MA for Summer 2011? All I have so far is rumination all day and night. How long did it take you to be sure? How long can you contemplate and research before you must put something down? When do you know this is it? Do you just feel it? I am skeptical of the transformative deconstructive ‘magic moment,’ even though it has occurred in my life a few times. What am I really wanting to know? What do I want you to know? I don’t have the answer.

Katharine Tillman, a woman from New York that I have been obsessed with for many years has been posting so many fascinating article links on Twitter. One of them was from Slate about Elizabeth Loftus and memory. My selective memory is one the things I am so proud of yet comes out of having serious difficulty remembering anything that follows a linear logic (such as names, tasks, directions, etc… even causal relationships). I think that is why post-structuralist theory and philosophy make so much sense to me, at least one of the reasons – because I remember and then can synthesize and understand it. How can I train myself to recall things and ideas that follow a successive order … ? Do I need to? … or am I doomed from playing with mercury as a child?

I am so glad I am leaving in time for the G8/G20 Summit in Toronto. Our streets have been taken over by cops that aren’t just for show but actually stop people at their leisure if they’re engaging in potentially ‘dangerous’ activities such as taking photographs of buildings. The downtown core has been stripped of newspaper boxes, bike locks and even trees have been uprooted to prevent protestors from using the branches as weapons. There’s a giant fence that keeps reminding me of the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. I don’t have much thoughts on it because I’ve been so enclosed in my life of studying and packing, but mainly because I am in shock at the whole situation and what this is doing to my city and to us, and how can we have protocols in place to prevent this from taking over a city again. The amount of money that is drained from US, from all of us taxpayers that had no choice but to accept the Summit here. How can it be that the money I am giving to my government can be used AGAINST me (I am thinking particularly of protestors, people that live in the core, etc.)? FUCK.

Ok, my next post will probably be from Europe — I am including a photo of Sara and I from Montréal when we presented at Congress 2010 on “Digital Storytelling Pedagogical Intervention” and a photo of my dear friend Meichen showing off her culinary loves. Meichen is doing a residency at Parsons Paris this summer and Sara is travelling to Vienna to take part in the Ultimate Frisbee World Championships.

Also, do you follow me on your RSS reader? Just make it happen.

OK BYE! Now I am baking organic spelt flour oatmeal raising walnut cookies for my class tomorrow. I hope there is enough. I mean, I hope I don’t eat them all first.

Tags:

Misanthropy

This is me at Leslie Spit last year. It's my favorite place in Toronto!! The photo is all grainy because it had to be pulled to the extreme, because I opened the camera twice + it had serious light leakage.


I went out last night to see Hudson Mohawke. I have no money or time, but he was so phenomenal in New York last year, I thought it could give me some energy to get back to my school work and maybe make it okay to be out. Of course, it didn’t. The DJ before him was terrible (even though his taste in music is excellent), and it really upset me. The thing is, that people I know were all saying the same thing about how much he was just ridiculous but I’m the one with no social reservations posting about it on Twitter in public and to the said DJ. Of course, no one else would say anything but niceties, and I’m not saying that they should have to publicly confirm all their thoughts,  but it usually ends up being me out there, me, the asshole. I guess, I could just keep quiet, and only say things in private, and be one of those Yes Man’s. but that seems so weird to me. How can change ever occur without some sort of revolt? Of course my comments, instead of being productive get misinterpreted as bitchy opinions, and that’s partly my fault because of the way I communicate them. Opinions are pretty useless most of the time, because they don’t provide any new perspectives. To be concrete and not espouse a musical opinion of his actual performance (because shit, even though many people disliked it, maybe I don’t get what he was trying to do), the DJ lacked vibes and know-how, unable to do justice to any of the great songs. But, maybe he’s just having an off-night, maybe I should just not concern myself so much. Am I being apologetic for my comments now? Maybe not apologetic, but wishing I had reacted differently, wishing that I hadn’t gave myself over to the negativity when I decided to give a shit for a moment, but yeah, it was my money and time, so it makes sense I would, but then to give so much of my needed energy to it too? I guess that’s what I’m frustrated with. In a larger context, I’m trying to figure out why I get so enraged, and why I can’t just let things roll off me.

So no, I didn’t really get to dance, because by the time Hudson Mohawke came on I felt serious misanthropy and frustration. His set was also less than 50 minutes and totally disjointed. The tunes he has are amazing and he played this one tune that made me lose it with some crazy Enya type vocals and he did play Polkadot Blues (!!!), but I could have just stayed home and listened to song after song instead of giving myself all this anxiety. I wonder why it was set up like a concert, song, pause, song, pause, song. Totally different than in New York when it was a full 2-hour cohesive performance, and although the crowd was loving it, I think it’s difficult to lose yourself in the music with long silent breaks between. And I didn’t go to a rock concert, I went to a party, a party that I paid full price to go see, and this is what I get? People moshing. By the end of the night, the enemies I was making out of everyone stacked up high against me.

I really should not go out any more, I have lost the ability to ‘act’ within the social codes of conduct. I am alienating myself from all the people I used to know, ousting myself from the bare minimum of belonging I used to have. “I’m so horrible,” I said to j last night, to which he responded, “No, you are just passionate.” The thing is that all of this does come out of a need for good shit. When there’s something undoubtedly good, I can never fault it, despite personal opinion. I just can’t, and fuck, I throw all of myself into things that I love, giving them all of my energy zealously. But, maybe I should drop the expectations. But, maybe I want to have expectations of performance and of skill (not that I assume myself some ultimate judge but I can only relate to something through my interpretation). I would hope that people would have the same for me, that people would call me on any bullshit, or disagree with me. I want that. I am yearning for the battle, because I’m unsure of myself, and would love some productive honesty. Maybe all this rage is totally misplaced? I know it isn’t always, but this rage didn’t fuel me at all, just pronounced the disappointment I felt with the night.

.

There’s a lot more things happening in my life, exciting things, but also many things I have to be responsible for and make decisions about, and I have serious problems taking on decisions even if once I have accepted the decision, I go head first. These are the many things to write about, not this ramble. Lesson Learned ya?

Tags: ,

What’s important

I keep thinking about what the most important things in life are. I dislike discourse on ‘lying’ because I think discussing truth is really complicated and often problematic within our cultural confines. To me, lying is just another fragmented truth in the cat’s cradle arrangement. Authenticity is more of what I’m after. But above all that, what I’ve really been thinking about is hypocrisy and how I want to work towards removing any hypocrisy in my life. Gah! Now, if only everyone I knew would want to all work together to eradicate this without a right/wrong dichotomous way and be comfortable in calling out contradictions, holla!

Would you also be okay in engaging with me about your on hypocrisy? Really? Really?

Tags:

outputting.

I have three photographs in the X and O Show put on by LoverMagazine.com on February 13, 2010. This is my first time exhibiting photographs that aren’t printed yet, so I have to get them properly digitally printed and framed and I’m really nervous because it’s expensive and possibly time consuming. At the moment, taking a poo is time-consuming so…. following is more things that are happening outside of writing essays in the next few weeks because why not?

I am going to be exhibiting some of my ‘future cinema’ work at the York University Augmented Reality Lab Open House Show next week.

I thought I was going to miss my cubic centimeter of chance so I got really flustered and made things a bit messy in the midst of all this unintentionally but I don’t like messy so it’s been contained.

Shitmat/Henry is coming for a gig on the 12th. He is gonna stay at our place for a bit on the condition he will cook for us (or at least once) because he’s always cooking. I’m borrowing a video camera from school again so we’re going to try to make a video and edit it all while he’s here. That’s my plan anyway. I think Henry is one of the most gentlest creatures I’ve ever met. Even among his constant hysteria and fits, he is such a soft cat. Plus he’s ridiculously talented.

I am VJ’ing at a Sensoria/Embrace collaboration party featuring Untold on the 14th.

I have also been getting serious driving lessons with my dad and last week I drove on Bathurst and crossed intersections in Forest Hill! It was very intense, especially when driving up Lonsdale I wanted to make a left turn and he got nervous because he doesn’t know the Toronto roads and grabbed the steering wheel from my hands to turn back into the middle lane and it was Saturday afternoon, so the cars were coming from every direction but I kept it smooth. After he saw me react with such strength he eased up and let me drive around. I gotta say though, practicing parking from the back is hard!

Tags:

Anytime I am looking to make sense of life I turn to Mitsu -

At each moment, I say to myself, suppose I were at the end of my life, and I were transported back to this moment, to be able to live my life again.  I’m here, new, the first moment of my second chance.  What do I do with it?

We always think of ourselves as at the end of a long history which we imagine is trapping us, defining us and our world; our mistakes, our successes. But if we thought of this moment as a fresh beginning, rather than the end of a history of events, we would see there are vast possibilities in our present moment now. We don’t have to keep doing what we’ve been doing. If we had a second chance, we could do anything, we have the whole wide world in front of us… would we just repeat our past patterns or joyously start fresh?

There’s no reason why, as adults, we have to restrict ourselves to our habits, our knee-jerk reactions, our comfort zone. We can start over, every fresh new moment, with all our knowledge and experience, but not constrained by it but simply informed by it. Simple yet it’s hard to even notice we’re treating our lives as a great big experiment in repetition and not paying attention.

Not paying attention, because: if we really were paying attention, we wouldn’t jump to conclusions quite so readily, we wouldn’t be so sure our story was true, was fact, was set in stone. We would be a little more open to the possibility that we don’t, in fact, know what our world is, what we are doing, and the limits of our world. If we had a moment to look at things new, with a little more doubt, we could see infinite spaces open up in between our judgements and thoughts, and perhaps we’d have a chance to flex ourselves in directions we didn’t even conceive of before.

The same goes for listening, reading, thinking … when we listen to something we’ve heard before, when we read something we’ve read before, or something like it, we tend not to actually think about it again, fresh, re-checking it, but instead we consult our memory and replace the fresh experience of the idea(s) with a memory of having encountered the thought before. We take the memory placeholder as a stand-in for the idea. But this is useless and harmful, for a number of reasons: the memory is itself embedded in habits and contexts which are no longer nearly as relevant now, by doing this, we fail to refresh and re-check the idea, so that it can be expanded beyond the confines of how it worked for us in the past, and we also deprive ourselves of the advantage of putting our minds through the process of thinking about the idea afresh, which is always the best way to “remember” anything — not by remembering it, but by recreating it from scratch. Don’t take that retread: the “memory” of an idea, which is mere propaganda.  Every idea has a vast new possibility of application with each moment; evolution, expansion, even refutation. An idea, repeated, can be a gateway to a new insight, even if we’ve heard it or read it or thought it a thousand times before, by re-thinking it, recreating it as though we’d never heard it before. It’s only then we have the chance to see new dimensions of it, and to reapply it to our ever-changing and always unique presence with the world. – synthetic zero

Permalink: http://www.syntheticzero.com/?p=135

& read this too: http://www.syntheticzero.com/?p=183

Tags: ,

« Older entries