Back to Blogging!!

Hello world! I'm going to start blogging for reals this time. There are two things I would like to talk about today. Number one- the weirdness that is emerging in my apartment at an alarming rate. Elena brought with her and continues to accumulate some awesome furniture, that has really contributed to the quality of life around here. Also, I've been feeling extremely crafty lately, and I've discovered it's easy and effective to get Elena swept up into my crafting fervor. I'll provide some visuals so you can see what I mean.

The above is a craft project. Elena and I got it into our heads that we should definitely go to Michaels because we needed pillow stuffing. Really, that was just an excuse. I wanted some fake birds, the kind you put in wreaths. I used to have them as a kid and play with them for hours, and once I remembered they existed I HAD TO HAVE THEM. So we drove half an hour to Michaels...sidenote...why are there no stores such as Michaels, walmart, home depot, target, etc etc, in the city proper? It's sooo annoying. Anyway. While browsing the $1 bin I found a variety of tiny bird cages! Who could ever possibly resist buying tiny bird cages of varying size and color for a dollar each? Not me, I tell you. And they totally justified buying the fake birds. It was perfect. So now we have tiny birdcages hanging in the foyer. It seemed like too much to put birds in all of them, so only two of them have birds. One has a glass flower, one has some dead flowers, and one has a dead snake my Uncle Dan sent from China. I don't know, it made sense at the time. Anyway it has really added a lot to the foyer. It's downright cozy in there. And you know what else has added a lot to the foyer? Ill tell you....

Only this THRONE! Elena got it for FREE. Who, who I ask, would throw out such a luxuriously upholstered, magnificently carved and comically large example of pure craftsmanship? Apparently it was at the mechanic's shop where Elena went with her friend to get her car fixed in Shirley MA. And she asked about it and they just gave it to her. Ask, and ye shall receive.

Now, on to the next thing. Today I went with Elena and Eric to the borders in the atrium mall on route 9, which is closing, so they're having an everything-must-go type of sale. I had a giftcard, and since I've been dying to shop lately and am also destitute, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity for some retail therapy. And let me tell you I am so glad I went because I found a real gem of unsurpassed literary value. How I never knew about this book before, I don't know. Here it is.

Basically, It's a book written by a Harvard professor who started palling around with Timothy Leary, and ultimately got fired for promoting the coolness of LCD and such. But at that point it didn't matter because he was already on another plane...ya dig? It contains an illustrated description of his personal philosophy, where he pretty much picks and chooses from Hindu, Jesus, Buddhism, and the guru that is inside his own heart cave. Oh, and the divine mother Earth. It's actually pretty cool, some of it really makes sense, but then there are definitely some pages entirely fueled by acid induced brain melt. Those pages are just really funny. I'll provide some examples.

Conclusion...recommended reading. That's all for today, folks.

Spaceship Project!

Recently I had an assignment in my documentary photography class to

photograph the ten things I would miss most if I had to leave Earth forever. I would have to show these pictures to aliens who had

no concept of our planet, and I wouldn't be able to explain them with words. The pictures would have to convey my connection with the subject and it's significance in my life. On the flip side, I would be able to show this planet in any way I wanted. Since the aliens would have no idea what Earth was truly like, I could make it look how I wanted to remember it, not necessarily how it truly was. I took this concept and ran with it. I ended up shooting the whole project with my phone, using an app I downloaded called FXcamera. The app is supposed to make the pictures look like they were taken with a Holga...they don't, really, but they do look pretty cool and dreamlike...more how I wish the world looked, and how it looks when I think about it, rather than how it really is. It was actually totally freeing to shoot with a 2 megapixel cellphone camera with no control over aperture, focus, shutter speed etc etc. It's certainly not something I would do every day, but for the purposes of this project the lack of control over the camera really let me clear my head and focus on the mood and subject of the pictures.