speaking of handfuls....

for all you ladies, that is a front pleat of the best kind....

"We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness and call that handful of sand the world."
- Robert Pirsig

via whiskeyriver

paper planes

disclaimer* this week's postings will be an onslaught of websites and videos. i promise absolutely no mental stimulation WHATSOEVER.

Lately, i've been kicking off my days with either one of two videos. this is the first of 'em, which i adore because a) she's just so damn fresh and irreverent, b) the pirate truck, and c) the hook just HITS (ala the Neptune's "Grindin' "). I'm off mixed feeling on having kids sing the hook, but it works here.

At any rate, I play this song and I know it's going to be a good day.

a good place to begin the work week...

"I hate it when the maid moves my guitar."

my moment of zen

"we are the ones we have been waiting for."

from "Poem for South African Women"
June Jordan

an appeaser.....AN APPEASER!!! BLLLAARRGGHHHHH

In response to Bush's recent not-so-veiled swipe at Obama.

Q: What did Chamberlain do in '38 that was wrong?



A: "When you're in a hole, stop digging."

Great article by the Miami Herald's Leonard Pitts on this very clip....here

a very happy birthday to one of my dearest friends, Ms. Charlin DC.

i know a lot of people think their friends are that one-in-a-million calibre friend; the kind of friend no one could replicate between now and the time they suck in that last gracious breath.

everyone likes to think they know at least one somebody like that.

i'm sorry to tell them, whomever you know doesn't have shite on this one right here...

so happy birthday, and thank you.

thanks for tumbling out into this world head first, thank you for keeping that spirit in all your trials and triumphs -- big and small, thank you for the pleasure of your friendship, thank you for the friend you've been, the gift you are, and the magnificent woman you are becoming.

"We should all be able to agree that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was "confrontational." He was also wise, measured, visionary, good-natured and generous of heart. Like most great figures in history, he was complicated. But he didn't ask for an end to Jim Crow repression, he demanded it; he didn't request equal justice, he required it. Confrontation, basically, was the whole point."

- Eugene Robinson, responding to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts recent complaint that the new MLK Jr. memorial statue was too "confrontational."

Full article: "King As He Was"

i fly like paper

for creators, designers, artistes, and their admirers

fly gals

my moment of zen

the view from my apartment: early evening

"only one way of looking at it"

"Perhaps it's true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house -- the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture -- must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for.
Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted.
Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story."

- from The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy

flashback fridays

the many expressions of toddler B, because brand-spanking new daddies just get like that....

can i just try it on, pleaaaaase?

i'm beginning to look at websites the way i look at shoes.
just when i see one i like, another one catches my fancy.
like, say for instance, i've resurrected this blog.
and i'm quite happy with this blog.

then i see the tumblr site.
now i'm trying to scheme ways
i can get my tumblr going.

sigh.

statler & waldorf

"they're so old and weezy, like the cranky guys from the muppet show"
- Gaetano

[courtesy of the boyfriend]

by the bridge, Ho Chi Minh City

if i were to come up with an artsy-fartsy title of these two pictures, it would be "the dichotomy of youth"...or something of that sort.

i love how the boy in the cargo shorts completely changed his look between the two pics. model material right there, straight up.

lost in translation?

one of my students gave me a gift today after class.

she approaches me all furtive-like, the gift in a small yellow plastic bag. she tells me it's for me and i'm both flattered and a bit perplexed...incredulous even. even through the bag i can tell it's some sort of jewelry.

she looks at me expectantly and i know that i must pull out the present so i can "oooo" and "awwww" to her approval. so, i reach into the bag and pull out a necklace of black and gold stones and beads. it's pretty, not so much my taste but i'm floored and honored by the gesture anyway, especially considering this is a class that i'm not very fond of (the girl in question, on the other hand, i like very much). i'm convinced that i must be doing such an awesome job teaching that this girl just HAD to run out and buy me this necklace to show her complete, unbounded gratitude and appreciation.

as i'm slipping the necklace back into the bag, i ask her why she decided to get me a necklace for no particular occasion at all. she replies...

"Teacher, because I alway see you wearing the same things."

on lauryn [pt. II]

a video comparison of two lauryns

if not my favorite song from "the miseducation...", then pretty damn close

her live cover of roberta flack's "the first time ever i saw your face." it may sound blasphemous, but i find the original song a bit cumbersome and overly emotional anyway, so i have particularly mixed feelings about this performance.

i have to concede that it's not an entirely fair comparison because the former is an uber-produced, technically precise and glossy product, while the latter is a very raw, very flawed live performance. i do think that these two videos really capture the nature of her transformation as an artist, though.

on lauryn [pt. I]

"on lauryn"

my most recent livejournal post. it was going to be a short take on lauryn's influence on my sartorial tastes, but as you can see, it kind of...uh....morphed.

*disclaimer* expect it to be a bit disjointed and mistake-laden, i was watching lauryn on youtube for further inspiration whilst i was writing it. if there aren't copious spelling and grammatical errors, it's because i cleaned it up before you got to it.

Does Anybody Here Feel Like Hearing the Blues?

one of the greatest youtube discoveries i've ever made. the picture quality ain't great, but the sound (good God, the sound!) more than makes up for it.

wanna get dirrty

i can't understand shite this french online mag says, so i just drool over le pictures.

Dirrty Glam

Goodbye Raif

miss you like a motherfucker...