Sea Wolf - Winter Windows

Both my parents came to this country as illegal immigrants and that is the proudest thing I think I could ever say about myself.

Daniel Johnston - Speeding Motorcycle of my heeeaaart

I was reading the electric kool-aid acid test by the pool (btw, wtf?). After I was enveloped in a thin layer of sweat, I jumped in the pool and swam around for a while. I eventually surfaced (like a whale or nuclear submarine) next to a bumblebee who had fallen in. I put the little bee into my palm and swam him to safety. He flicked his wings for a few as he shook the water off his wings and flew away.

Looking back on that, I wonder if my motivation was
A.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollinator_decline
B.) That Phil Collins song where he tells that guy he saw him choose not to save a drowning roadie or whatever.
C.) My general respect for living things

Either way, I hope that little bumblebee is having a good day at work today.







I've always liked the way 8 o'clock light wakes me up in the morning in this room.

why? - these few presidents

Self portrait with a party hat.

Miles Davis - Boplicity

Riding my bike home from school today, I decided that I would make a pineapple curry (I know, I'm a fatass). I've never tried it before, but I can't imagine it being too hard.


Unfortunately, I need to run to publix because I dont have a pineapple =(

I still haven't gotten over my ever-intensifying love for Mr. Vonnegut. This is, for me, probably the most beautiful thing I have ever read:

He went into the living room, swinging the bottle like a dinner bell, turned on the television. He came slightly unstuck in time, saw the late movie backwards, then forwards again. It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who flew. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this:

American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter plans flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.

The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.

The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn't in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed.


Now, to end with a photo of something we often link with ending World War II. I saw this as I was about to leave for class. My boot, of course, is there for comparison =)

batlashes

We swung by some party last night and drank beer inside of a surprisingly stable and completely awesome treehouse. like the guy who writes xkcd, a little part of me always thinks about making a treehouse and how we would fill it.

http://weburbanist.com/2008/06/23/15-more-tree-houses/
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/02/21/eco-ewok-treehouses-finca-bellavista-sustainable-rainforest-community/


and...
http://www.thetreehouseguide.com/

pedro the lion

i was at the library today and thumbed through a book titled 'the state of florida photography' and smiled when i saw that 4 of my previous photography professors had some photos they had taken in there.

i dunno, but that seems pretty cool.

in other news, alec soth is giving a talk at school today. i hope no one figures out i'm not a photo major.

bat macumba

I was riding my bike through campus today and I saw something which, for a second seemed particularly nice/beautiful and I guess now, worth my time to write about it. Some guy put his bookbag down next to a tree and began to pray to Mecca.

I was riding my bike so it only caught my attention for less than 5 seconds, but I actually felt relieved to know that there are still plenty of people who hang on to their traditions and those of their parents. Although I myself am not a religious person, its things like this, or my grandmother's rosary praying, that make me happy to be human.

To the Minotaur that lives above me:

Dear Minotaur, please take it easy on the floor. I hear your hooves clip-clopping on the floor every morning I wake up and especially at night while I try to go to sleep. The ceiling fan sways as you jump out of bed and gallop towards the bathroom. I know this because I can hear and count every step you make with your mighty hooves.

Thanks,
James

M. ward

Just when I thought my bike couldn't get sexier- he done do it again.