intellectual properties

i love you because….it’s complicated

i mentioned a while ago that my friend alexander was doing this amazing photo-writing project called I Love You Because.

here is the one i did for jay:

click here to see the full image and read about it.

Continue reading »

revolutions: saying yes

this post was meant to be the first post of 2009, but it has been started many times and has taken a number of twists and turns. i’ve written some of it while angry, some of it while frustrated, some of it while hopeful, some of it while happy, some of it in one of my many other moods. i’m going to attempt to make all the pieces flow but it might seem a bit disjointed and it’s definitely as polished or coherent as i’d like it to be. i’m tired of working on it though, so here it is.

ariel wrote recently about coming into contentment around her age. i admit i have also been struggling with the aging process, but larger than anything superficial, although there’s that too, for me, it’s not so much about my age and what that means physically or culturally, but about how much time i have left. it’s also very hard for me to accept “i am where i am” when i’m not really where i want to be, and i feel like every day is a missed opportunity in a limited number of opportunities to get there. the problem is, i don’t know what “there” is, and every January 1 that rolls around gets a bit harder in that respect.

Continue reading »

the weeks passed

just some short notes on where my life has been the last 2 weeks. i could say a lot about many of these things, but i probably won’t get around to it. i’m already behind on blogging life-related things, so here’s an annotated list. i only took 1 extra day off work (jan2) other than christmas and jan1, but so many other people were out of work/out of school that it still sort of felt like we were all on vacation. mostly i just want to say I LOVE MY FRIENDS, they are all super awesome and beautiful humans, and hm…..considering that a large percentage of the past 2 weeks have involved lying around on couches, wow i’m tired right now.

mdec22: work, gym - step class + abs/buns. ouch.
t23: work, chillin @soapfactory for new year’s eve eve
w24: work, christmas eve @kyle and trish’s in SF, then to jeffrey et.al.’s house party that the cops busted like….4 times. woooo!
th25: christmas dinner @jack’s
f 26: work, jazz@bacar wine bar/restaurant with amanda and friends. quite nice.
sa27: sunny afternoon hike up the claremont canyon, friends over to loft to watch movies
su28: day of rest
m29: work, gym - step class + abs/buns. ouch again.
t30: work, went to see slumdog millionaire with ab+n in piedmont. good stuff.
w31: work, NYE @jack’s, then @monkeyfresh. went home relatively early (4am?), while others continued on unabashedly until thursday afternoon
thjan1: slept in, then went back to clean up NYE@monkeyfresh and hung out @ soaps until way late being silly
f2: slept in, live music @ireland’s 32, then to orange’s where we were tortured by a 2,000 piece puzzle until 2ish
sa3: alameda–>lake merritt–>concord running errands etc; then friends @loft until 4am
su4: indian brunch @ venus in downtown berkeley with ab+n, then drinking/games @albatross

today: work, gym, then focus group later tonight in SF
tomorrow: work, dinner with s+m (yay!)
wednesday: work, gym
th8: transportedSF

on couture poetry

on couture poetry, originally uploaded by amyleblancdotcom.

“i feel like a good historically inspired poem should be like couture: fabulous and taking just enough of the historical to be reminiscent but not enough to be tacky.”

wefeelfine.org

constellated

constellated, originally uploaded by amyleblancdotcom.

the nexus facebook friend grapher @ http://www.nexus.ludios.net/ shows you how your facebook friends are related, either in a spiral or like this.

click through flickr to see notes on the groupings. i was shocked to remember that some people don’t know each other at all. most of the outliers are people i’ve worked with who i’ve never done anything with socially, and a few random internet friends. i don’t generally add people i’ve never met, or even people i’ve met more than once but have never had a private conversation with, but there are always exceptions.

“only the truth wins”

saw Slumdog Millionaire last night….

and it made me grateful
and humbled
and angry
and sad
and reminded me how big this world is
and how lucky i am
and how important this life is
and why it is imperative to be Good
and seek Truth

Friend, hope for the truth while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
What you call “salvation” belongs to the time before death.
If you don’t break your ropes while you are alive,
do you think ghosts will do it after?
The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten –
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with
an empty apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life
you will have the face of satisfied desire.

~ Kabir (Indian mystic poet)

(thx jason for the poem)

happy new year….

may we all find the truths we seek in 2009.

the new work ethic: just paying attention

Work Ethic 2.0: Attention Control

Columnist David Brooks, commenting in the Dec. 16th New York Times about Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book called “Outliers,” made a statement as profound as it was accurate: “Control of attention is the ultimate individual power,” he wrote. “People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them.”

But why is that truer now than ten or twenty years ago? Why will it be truer still ten or twenty years from now? As I wrote in May, Internet distractions evolve to become ever more “distracting” all the time — like a virus. Distractions now “seek you out.”

Distractions mask the toll they take on productivity. Everyone finishes up their work days exhausted, but how much of that exhaustion is from real work, how much from the mental effort of fighting off distractions and how much from the indulgence of distractions?

Pundits like me are constantly talking about Facebook, Twitter, blogs and humor sites, not to mention old standbys like e-mail and IM. One gets the impression that we should be “following” these things all day long, and many do. So when does the work get done? When do entrepreneurs start and manage their businesses? When do writers write that novel? When do IT professionals keep the trains running on time? When does anyone do anything?

~via axelalbin@twitter. (ha!)

(i suck at the new work ethic.)

illuminated

interesting: The Bible Illuminated is currently the best selling bible study text on amazon.

the new testament presented in glossy magazine format with graphic and touching photos and other text to “illuminate” the teachings of the bible and relate them to today’s world.

see a free 19-page excerpt here (PDF), in which poverty and hunger are addressed via Luke.

i know a few people for whom this would be a great gift.

~via

danger v. opportunity

a much better piece on the subject of moving to a post-consumer america than what i wrote:

I grew up in Seattle, WA and was raised with the idea that money is equal to life energy and time and that it is important to spend less and wisely unless I wished to be constantly on the job and enslaved to a salary….

…To me it is seems exciting and inspiring to rely on our local communities, know our neighbors, grow our own food, barter/trade, craft our own clothes, fix our favorite pair of shoes, and enjoy each others company instead of passing the night away in front of cable TV with a frozen pizza made and packaged in Wisconsin and numbed thoughts. It gives us a positive creative way to utilize and conserve resources, combats isolation, gives us the chance to express skills that few jobs would allow, and lends to a more holistic sense of self that even folds art and spirituality back into our daily lives. It’s a revival of what I imagine my grandparents experienced growing up in rural farm towns, infused with urban DIY culture, activism, and spiritual consciousness. I know “hold on there you idealist hippie” you might be thinking, but I really think the time is ripe for it now more than ever.

It is a huge paradigm shift to think of spending less, needing less, and relying on one another more and I think this tends to comes across more like DEPRIVATION than FULFILLMENT to most Americans. Give up a Lexus and fancy French dinners before going to see “Les Miserables” to ride a bike thru the rain and play board games over home-made apple strudel? I think that living in a way that is not so strapped to the now-not-so-mighty-dollar, the ballooned American Dream, oil, and consumer materialism in general takes a lot of work, awareness, education, and commitment to alternatives. This lifestyle shift takes time to cultivate and also requires privilege to think about it in the first place and the right environment.

–from Surviving the Economic Meltdown: DANGER or OPPORTUNITY?

related: America’s New Year’s Resolution: Stop Being Stupid

and FYI: the chinese character for “crisis” does not equal “danger + opportunity”

the power of suggestion

i don’t know why i just joined twitter, but i did.

right after i read this. i mean, i might as well. i certainly don’t want to be missing out on anything awesome on the internet, and if i don’t end up using it, oh well.

so, tweet me, or whatever.