Wednesday, February 24, 2010

poetry coat

this past weekend jeremy and i went to the milwaukee art museum and saw two new exihibits (and as a side note, we also become members of MAM. it's really a good local museum). one of them was the Scholastic Art Awards: 2010 Wisconsin Regional Exhibition. the show is a collection of art from kids ranging from the grades of 7-12 in categories of architecture, ceramics & glass, comic art, design, digital art, drawing, fashion, film & animation, jewelry, mixed media, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and video games. jeremy's cousin had a dress that she made that had won a gold key in the competion which means that she will go on to the national level. while we were looking at all the other works of art, there was a coat that i fell in love with on display there. honestly i don't remember if it won a silver or gold key or who made it but, i was totally in love. the cool thing about this coat was that it had poetry written along with the design on the coat. you can't read the poetry in the pictures but i still thought i would share the coat with everyone. it's amazing! it's made out of felt, if it was just made out of wool, i would totally buy it and wear it! i love when fashion and poetry intertwine with each other! just goes to show that fashion isn't this frivolous thing and that poetry can be cool and in style (no pun intended, well maybe). so here are the pictures of the awesome coat!






Monday, February 22, 2010

quotables!

here's another installment of quotes. hope you enjoy.

-"our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - martin luther king jr.
-"sometimes i just can't explain all the ways you devastate me." - straylight run
-"why is that as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?" - ernest gaines
-"i am tired, beloved, of chafing my heart against the want of you; of squeezing it into little inkdrops and posting it." - amy lowell
-"love is the pain you can't refuse." - rhodez
-"you are infuriating and irritating and yet i find myself looking for you." - austenland by shannon hale
-"all are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher." - ambrose bierce
-"i smoked in those days, because like everyone else in the world who smokes, i wanted to die at least as much as i wanted to live." - shantaram by gregory david roberts
-"i'm trying to drink away the part of the day i can't think away." - modest mouse
-"families are about love overcoming emotional torture." - matt groening
-"whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." - albert eienstien
-"indifference is the strongest force in the universe. it makes everything it touches meaningless. love and hate don't stand a chance against it." - joan vinge

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

new comic wednesday

this week i reviewed the stand. it's based on the book by stephen king. i've never read the book so i have no clue if it's following the books story line. i only assume it's doing the best it can, but sometimes things just don't translate the best. so i hope you like this weeks review.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

swirls of thoughts

so monday at work i was in a mood of sorts. i can't really classify it as any specific type of mood but, i did listen to dashboard confessional all day at work if that helps to classify. but i did write down a whole bunch of different little ideas for poetry. just little one or two liners that i think with some work will work great together. i'm very excited about it. other than that, i've really been reading with most of my free time. i go in spurts between reading and writing and right now i'm in a reading spurt. but i will be back writing once it hits me. sometimes you just have to wait for inspiration (though i will admitt sometimes you must chase inspiration with a slegde hammer).

inner demons

so my pals from nothing special productions are doing a new play. well i guess it's a set of plays. called inner demons and it's written by nick cardiff. nick is a great playwright. this production should be good just like the other nothing special productions i've seen. and i've gotten to read some of nick's scripts and they are just amazing! he knows how to write about the human condition. so i strongly suggest everyone go and see this play if you are in the chicago area.

To buy tickets please call Gorilla Tango by calling 773-598-4549 or visit their website at http://www.gorillatango.com/.

Tickets: $10
Shows: February 26th @11:30pm
            March 6 @ 10pm
Run time: 45 minutes.

Inner Demons is Nothing Special Productions’ Chicago debut and features three new plays by Nick Cardiff which explore the haunting nature of loss, betrayal and love. In Fear and Shadows, directed by Mikey Laird, we see Cupid falling in love with a mortal and the grave consequences that follow. Existence, directed by Robert Quinlan, shows how far the mind may go to explain one’s own reality after life throws an unfortunate curve. Finally in The Room, also directed by Mikey Laird, we see the relationship of two men who have been trapped in a room for as long as they can remember and how they react to finding out where it is they really are.

Featuring:
Melissa Imbrogno
Nick Demeris
Brian Rohde
Dane Lewandowski
George Zerante
Ilona Nemeth

Thursday, February 11, 2010

sharp objects

so i just finished the book sharp objects by gillian flynn and i have to say i liked it. the only objection i have to it was that the main character cuts and it's kinda randomly thrown at you. it's not lead up to at all. it's almost 4 chapters into the book until the main character tells you all about it, it's half way through a chapter and it's just like oh by the way i cut. i don't know if the author needed to do that. instead i think the author could have just strongly alluded to it, like just showing the readers the images of the cuts all over the body.  i think it would have been better that way. here the quote "what i like about a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers" - logan pearsall smith, would fit perfectly. i think if the author whispered the cutting i would have liked the book better. but i'm not the author and it's not my vision. i did enjoy the book and would suggest it for others to read. writing this review makes me think of a quote i found one day: "a critic can only review the book he has read, not the one which the writer wrote." - mignon mclaughlin. i can only review what i read, which is for sure different then what the writer wrote.

new comic wednesday... kinda

last week i was lazy and just didn't write a review for graham crackers comics. well this week i did write a review and my boss forgot to post it on the website. thanks jimmy. well i will have to reprimand him today and make sure he posts it. i wrote a review for the new pet avengers comic that came out this week. i like the pet avengers, it's the only kiddy comic that i read. my favorite charactor is frog thor. there's just something about the comic that makes me want to read it. well once i've yelled (not really, i'll just text him) at my boss i'll post the review on here.

update: here's the review i wrote for the pet avengers.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

the power of words

before i get into my post, i would like to say that i did feel the earthquake last night. it shook my bed and i could hear the whole house groan.


so on to my post. yesterday at work a co-worker comes up to me asks if i knew the difference between mosey, sashay and saunter. now they all sound like they would mean the same thing, but if they really meant the same thing then there wouldn't be three different words.

MOSEY: to move in a leisurely or aimless manner.
SASHAY: to strut or move about in a ostentatious or conspicuous manner. to proceed or move in a diagonal or sidways manner. walk, glide.
SAUNTER: to walk about in an idle or leisurely manner, stroll.

so there are your definitions and each word brings a different visual of how you would do all of those. my co-worker said that he thought to do a sashay you would need to put your hands in your pockets. i will say that a synonym for mosey is saunter. so that is why both of those are closely related. though they are still different words and have different visuals. to me this all just shows the power of words. three different words that are closely related but all mean different things. each word is good at different times when trying to describe something and aren't interchangable. using the right word when writing can make a big difference when you are trying to get your point across.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

philosophy in today's world

so i've just finished the book xmen and philosophy. it was amazing! it used real world questions - such as what makes us human - and applied them to the comic books and movies of the xmen. it's a very intelligent book and makes one think about many of the hard questions of life. the book is compilation of many different essays written by philosophers from all over the country and in canada. it's such a great book and it's the second one i've read in the blackwell philosophy and pop culture series. the other book i've read was south park and philosophy. the next one i want to read is battlestar galatica and philosophy.

to me it's such an amazing book to read because it makes me want to take some philosophy classes and learn more about philosophy. normally when i think about philosophy i think about stuffy old men asking silly questions that no one cares about. but that's just not true. what makes us human, should we try to cure all diseases, what's wrong with genetic experimentation and other questions are very modern and part of today's world (all questions asked in the xmen and philosophy book).

just on the news today i heard about a new genetic test that people who want to be parents can take that will test for 106 different diseases to see if their baby will be born with it. and then if both parents are postive for a certain disease, you can control what eggs are fertilized, so that eggs without those genetic deffects will be fertilized only. this would be questioned and tried to be answered in the philosophy books. and this specific question is some-what asked in the xmen book. the questioned was based around fixing or curing the 'x' gene in mutants. but the same idea can be applied (as it is in the book) to deafness. should we cure deafness, is there something to cure, should we only fertilize eggs that don't have the genes that make people deaf and so on.

these questions and more are asked in these philosophy books and i just can't stop gushing about them. they are wonderfully written and really make you think. i strongly suggest everyone going out and getting one. there are about 30 different books in that particular series. i'm sure there is at least one book that would appeal to you.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

word of the week

we are going to move away from r words now. lets use this word:

diploma mill -
1. an institution of higher education operating without supervision of a state or proffessional agency and granting diplomas without the usual required courses and attendence.
2. provides a fake degree from a real college.