Care Package #3: My Art, My Obsession

"Things that are personal have flaws. They have vulnerabilities. If you don't see a vulnerability in somebody, you're probably not relating with them on a personal level."
- Jonathan Blow creator of Braid 

This Care Package of documentaries was assembled and packed for all my artist friends and the people who love/endure them. Dedication can sometimes be misconstrued as selfishness, and passion as mental illness. While these artists walk this fine line, their respective documentaries show both sides of the coin.

Exit Through the Gift Shop 

Exit Through the Gift Shop, directed by Banksy in 2010, follows video artist turned overnight graffiti millionaire, Thierry Guetta. Obsessed with capturing every moment of his life, Thierry's hand was glued to his camcorder. In the early 2000s Thierry visited family in France, a cousin going by the name Invader, would soon become a popular graffiti artist in Paris, famous for his space invader mosaics. From the moment he began filming Invader's process, Thierry became obsessed with filming graffiti artists, and went home to LA to follow Shepard Fairey, and Banksy. He logged so many hours of video, he would surely have made a documentary about Banksy and the whole movement. Unfortunately Thierry was incapable of organizing his thoughts, let alone his unfathomable amount of tapes. That's when Banksy took the reigns and documented Thierry.

Exit Through the Gift Shop, documents Thierry's journey from graffiti super fan, to carbon copy graffiti star. Thierry studied these artists with a microscope, and absorbed every detail, to the point where his own art could be judged as hacky. In a matter of months Thierry, going by the monaker Mr. Brainwash, put on a huge warehouse art show a la Banksy's Barely Legal, called Life Is Beautiful. He found a formula for success that took the other graffiti artists decades to accomplish. But is that impressive? Banksy noted in the film, "He's kind of the rightful air to Andy Warhol... Andy Warhol made a statement by repeating famous icons till they became meaningless, but he was extremely iconic in the way that he did it. And Thierry really made them meaningless." 

Pie In The Sky: The Brigid Berlin Story

Speaking of Andy Warhol; his socialite muse, Brigid Berlin, who is often over-looked as a key figure in Warhol's success, embodies obsessive consumption and production. Pie In The Sky: The Brigid Berlin Story, directed by Shelly Dunn Fremont and Vincent Fremont in 2001, utilizes old movie footage from the Berlin home, Warhol's films, testimonials from aging Factory regulars, and riveting interviews with Brigid as she is today (over 10 years ago at this point).

Brigid's addictive and obsessive personality takes on many forms. The list runs the gamut from over-eating (she describes herself as a bottomless pit) which must be curbed by strict meal portioning and scheduling, obsessive cleaning and organizing; her drug use in the 60s and 70s; audio taping every phone conversation; taking hundreds of Polaroids; and obsessive journal keeping. The best journal/sketchbook being the "Cock Book" in which many famous artists and actors drew penises in a thick blank bible Brigid was hell-bent on filling to completion. It doesn't matter if she's eating 50 key lime pies, or weighing her lettuce; Brigid must live with extremes.



Pie in the Sky paints a portrait of Brigid by piecing together the portrait she made of herself.  From the start of her time in Andy Warhol's factory, Brigid has been creating a never-ending autobiography. Her childhood traumas and frustrations, can be heard in the taped telephone recordings of her socialite mother. Brigid would do one woman shows where she would telephone her mother onstage to the audience's delight, and her mother's embarrassment. The best parts of this film are when Brigid impersonates her mother; doing an improvised (or most likely memorized) monologue of Honey Berlin, who berated Brigid about her lifestyle choices.
Brigid's art is the definition of raw vulnerability. She has a drive to show the whole world her naked self, whether figuratively or literally. 

Indie Game: The Movie

Directed by Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky in 2012, Indie Game: The Movie may seem like a curve ball in this list, but it's themes define the set. Even the quote at the top of the page is from this documentary. In Indie Game we meet the creators of Super Meat Boy, Edmund McMillens and Tommy Refenes; Fez, Phil Fish; and Braid, Jonathan Blow. Though the games they create are very unique to each other, they share a similar story of passion, masterful creation, and unbelievable stress.

What defines an "indie" video game is summed up in the personal vision. These are programmers who abhor the idea of working for a major company. They would much rather release their own concepts, even if that means working with a team of two programmers and enveloping your life with coding. When you don't have the same team that Nintendo has, you sacrifice your social life, and to a degree, your sanity. However, indie game designers can then base games on personal interests, beliefs, theories, and even subconscious fears without anyone to curb them.

When asked what he would do if his game, Fez, (three years in the making) failed, Fish said, "I would kill myself... That's my incentive to finish it; is that I can then not kill myself." These individuals are creating what they consider to be an ultimate art. Their video games are visually appealing, the story lines are powerful, and their cleverness is inspiring. Depression is not uncommon in this world. Failed projects are of course crushing, but surprisingly, depression as a result of successful projects is also possible. As proven with Jonathan Blow, his game Braid was extremely successful and received many accolades, but the critics did not recognize the meaning behind the game Blow intended. Blow felt isolated and misunderstood, as if his work was done for naught. Putting their souls into this creates a vulnerable situation for these programmers. That makes their games subject to heavier criticism; and when the whole company is you, the setbacks are much more monumental. Undeniably the vulnerability adds something relatable and charming.


I want to celebrate artists who make their art their life and vice versa. Those of you who take your insides and throw them to the sharks, you are appreciated.

The James Holmes Conspiracy: The Illuminati is the Answer to Every Question

Conspiracy theories can be fun or offensive, depending on how you look at them. They are either going to fall under the cheesy horror category, like Whitney Houston's death linked to satanism and the Illuminati; a harmless guilty pleasure. Or it could fall under the controversial, like the 911 conspiracy; the kind of thing you don't want to publicly admit you believe. In the case of James Holmes and his mass murder in an Aurora, CO movie theater, it was a surprise to me that anyone had a conspiracy theory on this to begin with.

Thrown together in August of 2012, Mark Howitt's The James Holmes Conspiracy, is a roughly edited, comical Power Point presentation with the ultimate goal of promoting the 2nd Amendment. I was duped into watching this because the doc was listed on a website with legitimate movies and TV shows. Howitt has a Youtube account full of documentaries he's made, and it looks like that's the venue they should remain in. Aside from hokey visuals used to drive points home, most of Howitt's footage is not even his own. It's a classic Youtube low-fi documentary. He conducts no interviews himself.  For five minute blocks at a time other footage is used, from shows like Dateline and FOX News, and I assume other documentaries which Howitt does not cite. Using news footage in a documentary is fine, but these were long unedited cuts. It appeared this was a rough draft, maybe even just the research stage, of his documentary.  Since it was made only a month after the shootings took place, it is clear there was a sense of urgency to produce it.

Logical progression...

In a nutshell, what Howitt is trying to prove about the Aurora Shootings is that the US Government and whoever controls the banks this week, wanted to accomplish three things: ruin the life of James Holmes, ruin the life of his father, Robert Holmes, and have an excuse to repeal the 2nd Amendment.

James Holmes was a "promising scientific candidate" in the field of neuroscience. The government logically wanted to snuff that candle, so they brainwashed him and endangered the lives of over one hundred people.

Robert Holmes created an algorithm that traces money back to it's source. He was scheduled to testify in the court case of the LIBOR banking scandal. In retaliation, Robert's son was brainwashed, and murdered 12 people, injured 58. As usual this was the best roundabout plan the Illuminati could come up with.

And while the Illuminati are working on their agenda, why not help the overwhelmingly liberal US government use this horrible event as a jumping point for gun law restriction?

Please take note that much of this has been said in complete sarcasm, as I do not think any of these scenarios are possible. If the government is so powerful, why didn't they just murder or brainwash Robert Holmes? Were they bored?

There are so many things wrong with this documentary in style and in coherence. It might not even be worth reviewing or complaining about. It is what it is I suppose, but still something I want to share regardless. I can only summarize all the flaws; there were just too many.  Below are my favorite screen shots from The James Holmes Conspiracy, to make my point.

Random visual within the first five minutes, great.

This part of the film was hilarious! Bill Clinton standing still for makeup. Spooky.

I hate to burst your bubble, but Illusions of time are not actually time travel. Note the use of the word "illusions."

Lead, Saturn, Time? This Google search is presented to the viewer in order to explain something, but it definitely fails at that. Except we do learn that Holmes trained at Lead Valley Range which of course means... wait, what were we talking about?

Meant to show that Holmes began to pay less attention to his studies. Doesn't give a S#%T!

Segments of The Manchurian Candidate were rampant in this documentary. I almost forgot that was a fictional movie for a second, and then I realized this entire documentary is fictional anyway, so just throw in whatever movie clips will make your point.

Was Holmes a lone wolf or was there an accomplice? Did he play Majic The Gathering? These are questions that need to be answered.

Basically played five straight minutes of the Vice documentary about the mind control drug Scopolamine, where the only visuals Vice had were wide shots of Bogota.

Let's talk about Fast and Furious for 10 whole minutes!

Howitt remarks how the Holmes story is "strangely similar to The Dark Knight Rises. " You are then forced to watch the entire preview without any further analysis. 

The James Holmes Conspiracy (2012 Full Documentary) from Multiscan on Vimeo.

Despite all this, I do recommend this documentary if only for a laugh, and the few bits of info that are actually thought-provoking. For instance, the extra gas mask found lying in the parking lot of the movie theater: who did it belong to and why was it there? Why did the chief of police skirt questions about the video survalence footage? Those were the only two things I cannot explain. Everything else about this case seems to be the result of a guy that just went off the deep end and used his college grant money to buy a bunch of weapons. I'm sure if you have a clean record and good credit history it's pretty easy to plan a mass murder. That last statement was not sarcastic.

Fear In the Unknown: Obscure Costume 2012

This Halloween was more awkward than usual. October 31st hasn't happened yet, but I'm calling it. Wednesday is a bad day for Halloween because if you're an adult and want to go to parties, they have to be held the weekend before. This means Halloween lasts nearly a week. It sounds good in theory, but the holiday starts with a bang and ends lack luster. To make things worse, we've got some severe weather with hurricane Sandy. The 31st might consist of cleaning up debris, not trick-or-treating.Thankfully the weekend was spared, that is if you weren't pre-panicking and sandbagging yourself in / your party guests out.

It was hard to not look Photoshopped.

Making things more delightfully awkward,
I wore another obscure costume this year. Despite knowing well that my costume would be lost on people for so many reasons, I make a costume based on my blog post about Ben Cooper Costumes. With inspiration from Brandon Bird's painting
 I Am The Night, I wanted to play on the idea that Ben Cooper seemingly made costumes for every imaginable character, however, all still within the scale of mainstream popularity. What would happen if his costumes still dared to be sold in stores? What characters would the company acknowledge for more modern TV series or movies? I chose to honor one of my favorite TV series Twin Peaks, and "dress" as the tragic Laura Palmer.

I used a plastic trash bag, with printed window decals that I designed in Photoshop. I tried to be as cheesy and literal as possible. But I could not for the life of me find a crappy generic mask anywhere! Standards are just too high these days. I wanted to wear a plain blond girl mask, a la Ben Cooper, but last minute I had to craft my own creepy and realistic Laura Palmer mask out of a photo. At least then I was more recognizable -- to those who even knew what Twin Peaks was. And if they did know Twin Peaks, they didn't necessarily know that Ben Cooper costumes existed. Explaining this was a chore and most people were too trashed to understand. I would try and start by explaining my costume was supposed to be bad, but sympathetic drunk girls would interject "No! No! It's ... nice." The pity imposed on me was neutralized by my prowess for obscure TV shows. The jokes on them! ha...
But like I said last year:

"Halloween is about enjoying yourself and being someone different for a night. It doesn't really matter if people know what my character is, I just know it will still creep people out. And it's not me, so that's step one of having a great costume."

One certain victory for this Halloween was my jello shot display. Last year I tried to make these awesome eye balls from Jelly Shot Test Kitchen, however, I didn't have the skillz then, and they weren't worth documenting. Learning from my mistakes, I used most of this  My Jello Americans recipe for the whites, added raspberry sauce for the bloodshot-ness, and mini M&Ms for the pupils.

Coconut Rum Eyeballs with Raspberry and Mini Brown M&Ms

My second batch was based on this neat Halloween science trick you can see on My Jello Americans here, and Jelly Shot Test Kitchen here. The Quinine in tonic water glows blue under a black light! I was also inspired by the use of pop rocks in this MJA post. I think my jello was too wet for the pop rocks to stick to the top as intended, but they added a nice sweetness to the tangy vodka tonic.

Vodka Tonic Radioactive Tubs with Pop Rocks.

All in all, despite the awkward set up, Halloween 2012 was a good one.
Happy Halloween!

Very Funny Guys, Those Aren't Costumes!

Back in the 70's kids didn't have to lift a finger or use brain cells for their Halloween costumes. A company called Ben Cooper Inc. made things real simple. Their costumes were both cheap and pop-culturally relevant. One can achieve this by selling plastic smocks with very literal images and designs based on popular characters.

My new favorite painting: Brandon Bird "I Am the Night"

During this golden age of Halloween no effort was needed to make anything convincing. How convincing is wearing a plastic smock that says your character's name? Pretty damn convincing. I really don't think anything else is needed beyond that, but the generous, detail-oriented folks at Ben Cooper Inc. added the likeness of your character right on the smock as well. Bonus: the hair color on your mask was accurate.

The Ben Cooper costume suppressed creativity on so many levels:
1. It discourages kids to gather or design clothing and accessories that define their character.
2. The designers at Ben Cooper could not create beyond the smock or leave much to the imagination.
3. Lazy/Overwhelmed parents couldn't help but buy these costumes to make this arduous holiday easier to handle.
4. It eliminates all discussion.
5. No one involved has to think.

Could this era of shitty, shitty (excuse my French) shitty Halloween costumes be more than just an example of cheap manufacturing? Could this style of costume be used to smother individuality?

If you wore a leather jacket in 1975, I can bet people would think you're the Fonz.

Even when you are the Fonz, you aren't really the Fonz, you are a kid in a plastic bag like everyone else. Put on the leather jacket, slick back your hair and say "Heey!" and you're not really the Fonz, but we get it, it's Halloween. Or you can put on a shirt that says, "The Fonz He-e-y!" and not say a word all night under your suffocating mask. As literal as you are, you are now even further from the truth -- further than we ever thought possible, actually. But here you are, doing it; a costume faking a costume. It's a charade to end all charades!

"Go on, you're Flipper now. Go away kid, ya bother me."

This is how I imagine Halloween went down back in the 70s. Kids insisted on being very specific TV personalities -- like minor characters from spin-offs that have very few discerning characteristics. Ben Cooper Inc. tried their best to oblige, knowing little about the new shows, and wanting to spend as little time and money as possible. With so many characters that pretty much dressed like everyday people, Ben Cooper Inc. at least wanted to create a product that was recognizable. Because a little girl's dream is not to be Shirley from Laverne and Shirley for a night: it's to wear a mask made from the same mold as a blow-up doll.

I think Shirley would wear that.

The painfully obvious costumes sure made things easier for adults answering the door. I guess the real problem with Halloween was that children had been wearing costumes that were too realistic. In this day and age how can you trust opening your door, when the real Chachi could be walking around. I'm glad I can tell who's wearing a costume. They all wear the same shapeless bag, but if it said "COSTUME" on the back too I would feel much better.
I personally won't open the door for anyone unless I see that plastic-y shine thought the peephole, or if their "trick or treat" is muffled beyond comprehension behind a claustrophobic mask.

And now I know who all the kids are being this year without having to talk to them. 

Fake Cannibalism / Real Cannibalism

I haven't posted for a while, but I figured I'd come back with a bang. Right now I'm going through a bout of writers block, as well as photographer's block. The funny thing about life though, is every so often something lurks about and finds it's way to inspire you. Just like when I went to the Golden Gate Bridge and was reminded of the chilling documentary, The Bridge, in seeing this BuzzFeed post on gorilla marketing for Resident Evil 6, I was reminded of a VICE documentary about Issei Sagawa.

In case you don't know about the food sculptor Sharon Baker and her installation in the Smithfield meat market East London, or Issei Sagawa, here is a visual.

The "Human Flesh Meat Market" looks quite upsetting. I think the flesh is made of Prosciutto. Not sure what the fingers and other "offal" are comprised of.
I had a familiar feeling when seeing images of this installation. I am very sensitive to bodily integrity (not to be confused with BIID in which case I would want to cut my arm off), so seeing dismemberment creates feelings of dread and way too many introspective thoughts; like how much less of myself would I be without these limbs? It was similar to when I first saw the black and white images of Issei Sagawa's victim.

Issei Sagawa is a Japanese man, who in 1981, killed and ate part of a young Dutch woman in Paris. Sagawa was detained in a mental institution, declared insane, and shipped back to Japan after the French public expressed outrage of Sagawa's detainment at their expense. Then he appeared to slip through the cracks of the justice system.

 VICE made a short documentary called VICE Meets Issei Sagawa, in which we see Sagawa free as a bird living in Japan, though seemingly trapped in a personal hell. Sagawa explains how cannibalism began as a form of sexual desire as a young boy that escalated into adulthood. While Sagawa claims to attempt remorse to no avail, he simultaneously expresses extreme guilt for being alive, surmising he must be some kind of alien; an abomination.

After Sagawa came back from Paris, his only means of income involved capitalizing on his bizarre crime. Sagawa goes as far as to say "Japanese people nowadays are really stupid" speaking about how he has been asked to write books, make art, and pornography, all exploiting the horrific nature of the incident.  Even he understands the depravity of this. What is most disturbing are the videos film makers made of him, making a freak show of his mental issue, making his cannibalism a sick joke, rewarding his irregularity, and concurrently disregarding the gravity of life lost at his hands.

In Vice Meets... you get a glimpse at a pornographic video in which a Japanese adult film actress interacts with Sagawa (he does not eat or harm her), ending with a tearful interview as she reflects on learning of his crime and obsessions. You will be happy to know that even after such an experience this woman has continued to be a "good friend" to Sagawa. I cannot understand her courage, or her motives.

Below is part 1 of VICE Meets Issei Sagawa. This video is NSFW. It is extremely graphic on many levels.

Mountain Top Removal and Why That is Not Such a Good Idea

Mitt Romney wants to make America independent from foreign oil by 2020. His plan does not include research on clean energy such as biofuels, solar power, and wind power. Instead he wants to drill and mine more than ever. Apparently this will create more jobs (and I did I mention make us more independent). But what about the effects on the land, the miners and drillers, the people living around the drilling, any progress we have made scientifically to improve our quality of life?

Below is a short documentary from Vice.com's Toxic series called,  
Toxic: West Virgina, that exposes the dangers of mountain top removal to access coal. It strips the land of topsoil and pollutes the groundwater. That doesn't just effect the wildlife; it hinders community development. Producer, Meredith Danluck writes,

"The companies try to play it off by saying that they’re developing flat land. On flat land, theoretically, you can put a mall or a Wal-Mart. But when they do mountaintop removal and make the land flat, the substructure is so compromised that the things they’ve built have been condemned. After a couple of years, the walls and plumbing start busting up because of the structure settling."

You may recognize the host, Derrick Beckles, as the face of the WHUDAFXUP branch of the Truth anti-smoking campaign. Fortunately he's not making any awkward stunts to try and freakout the establishment and make his point, though his snark still lingers. This episode of Toxic interviews real salt-of-the-earth people. If you're turned off by listening to bleeding heart hippies, they are nowhere to be found in this film. Though I have nothing against a good tree-hugging hippie, the message is powerful hearing it from the people who actually live there, and are unfortunately physically suffering as the land is. These are people who are constantly sick from the pollution caused by mining, and made to feel stupid for debating the ills of this business. As a man in the film said "They make fun of your commonsense."

"Right there is what I have to take on a daily basis to stay alive."

It's obvious that what we have going for us isn't working, and if that energy "plan" comes to fruition you can expect ten times what you see in this video. The atrocities these people are experiencing will happen to more people, maybe even you if it hasn't already.

Adult ≠ Maturity

Why can't we all just act like adults? I'm not against the concept, I just don't think it's actually attainable.

All throughout childhood, we are accused of acting like a younger person. "You're acting like a 2-year-old." "Stop acting like a five-year-old" "What are you, twelve?" In high school we say, "This whole thing is so middle school!" In college we say, "Why does this have to be just like high school?" Still during college and well into adulthood we are very often caught saying about someone, "Why can't they just act like an adult about it?"

When I was in middle school - host to some of the cattiest times in a girl's life - my parents told me that I would be lamenting people's immaturity and selfishness throughout my whole life. Basically: It doesn't get better. The concept of being a full-fledged adult appears pretty unreachable, and expecting it of anyone will lead down a road of constant disappointment. Especially if you believe once you reach a certain age, it's the time everyone is going to stop doing the things that always pissed you off. 

It was hard to believe, but it is true that some people (not you nor I, of course) will always be (for lack of a better phrase) pieces of total shit from when they are kids until they die. It does get a little better, though. Any high school or middle school teacher can attest, the kids can be remarkably inconsiderate, to say the least. I suppose as a grown person, it becomes more discouraging when the occasional 40 year-old does something that brings you back to the 7th grade. It makes one think, "really? still? now? you? come on." People will do things that we try to characterize as immature; measuring their actions as those made by someone younger and less conscious of the world and how they effect others. While these are characteristics of a many children, most will grow to a good level of thoughtfulness, but some traits unfortunately wont be shaken.

As a 25 year-old I know that aspects of my behavior have definitely improved over the years, and maybe some haven't. No one is perfect, and I don't know anyone who I can confidently say follows all of the criteria of being a so-called adult (no offense). The aforementioned "criteria" is loose and changes to fit a person's needs for argument's sake.

It seems like whenever someone wants to make a person look worse, they can play the adult card. "Oh, grow up!" "You're just being immature." It's really easy to throw those phrases around, take a person down a notch, and make yourself look better. You're the one who is determining maturity so therefore you must be mature. Right? 

Here's the dictionary definition: 

ma·ture

[muh-toor, -tyoor, -choor, -chur] adjective  
1. complete in natural growth or development, as plant and animal forms: a mature rose bush.

2. ripe, as fruit, or fully aged, as cheese or wine.

3. fully developed in body or mind, as a person: a mature woman.

4. pertaining to or characteristic of full development: a mature appearance; fruit with a mature softness.

5. completed, perfected, or elaborated in full by the mind: mature plans.

The definition hints at behavior by using the word "mind" once, but it mostly just talks about fruit.

My boyfriend, Matt uses the phrase, "Be a human" which at first sounds incredibly condescending (of course I'm a human, what are you talking about?), but is actually a much more fair request than "Be an adult." Since acting like a so-called adult is an ambiguous expectation, one should try to be a good human being. It's something you can do at any age.

Apparently I have to start taking photos of rotting fruit for iStock

Once in middle school I saw a girl crying over a break-up, and a male teacher took her aside and told her that because she was crying, it only proved that she was too immature to have a boyfriend. That interaction has stayed with me. I tried to imagine a future where men and women interacted with no conflicts, if only because they were able to hold it all inside and not rock the boat. If there was one bs thing adults always tried to convince kids, it was that adults take care of things with maturity, and maturity means no crying or whining. While it's best to avoid whining and crying, it's unrealistic that it can all be eliminated if we all just bucked up and acted like "adults" damn it!

Considering the concept of not crying over a break-up as the hallmark of adulthood and maturity, (and not the characteristic of a sociopath) I think everyone can agree that no matter how old you are, a break-up is a break-up, and if being an adult means being a robot that amicably shakes hands with a lover as they tell you they found someone new, then I guess being an adult and being human are two completely different things.

Welcome Humans

Obviously people just do random things to each other. If they're lucky the action sticks, grows in popularity and becomes a trend - and not a really awkward moment they will never live down. A simple explanation like that can be the only answer to why passing a newborn baby through a rind of cheese was ever popular.

photo courtesy of buzzfeed.com

According to the Encyclopedia of Superstitions, during the middle ages women would make a "groaning cheese" upon becoming pregnant, which would age for 9 months. Once the baby was born, the family and friends of the mother would eat the wheel of cheese, leaving a rind behind at the time of Christening. On the Christening day, the baby would be passed through the rind of the cheese.

The encyclopedia of Superstitions could not answer why it was called a groaning cheese, and like most odd trends from that long ago, it is explained people thought it would bring good luck, (obvi) but did not further explain why they would believe such a silly thing. You know, prosperity, and wealth, and good health, and good... just good things, all the good things. Stuff the Christening didn't cover.

On that fateful first day the baby could have been passed through anything. I'm thinking watermelon rind, ribcage of a pig, dunked in a wine barrel, large hollowed out loaf of bread; any and all of the major food groups. Maybe somewhere else other foods were experimented with, but the cheese just stuck, and a ridiculous tradition gained some respect for a while.

I swear someone's uncle must have gotten really drunk and thought it would be funny to put the baby in the empty cheese rind after the party. To save embarrassment the family insisted to friends it was an important ritual. Then everyone else wanted to be cool.

Or maybe it was some kind of Pinterest-esq idea a woman had. Just the simple thought of a common denominator between things (9 months in this case), and you got an adorable rustic foodie craft project.

Nowadays she would have made a post explaining how she can make this cheese that takes 9 months to age, and omg how perfect is it that the pregnancy will be just as long! There would be a compelling time-lapse video of her belly growing and the cheese doing it's cheese thing. It would end with an Instagram shot of her and her wax moustachioed husband passing the baby through the cheese as everyone laughs and drinks cocktails out of mason jars.
Then everyone else wanted to be cool.

I'm going to Pin this photo on to a board titled "Newborn Craft Ideas"

Also people just do weird stuff to their kids. This photo above is not of a frozen fetus, though it is a sculpture of one. This is a recent development in pre-birth keepsakes. It's called "Shape of an Angel": you simply have an MRI, and a company in Japan will make a life-sized 3D resin print of your womb and fetus. By the way, I never knew the womb was that angular.
Do I wish my parents had the technology to do this for my birth? Yes. It is creepy, however, ultrasound photos are always pretty grainy, and all babies look the same right when they come out, so your first photo is relatively unremarkable. This though, is a completely accurate copy of yourself at a time you definitely wont remember, your parents otherwise could never envision, and therefore need to commemorate in the most vivid way possible. Right now it costs over $1000 to do, but this could possibly catch on and be just another bizarre tradition in welcoming new humans into this world.

The Golden Gate Bridge Is THE Bridge

I thought taking a week-long vacation in San Fransisco and not watching documentaries would leave me without a proper blog post. Thankfully I was totally wrong.

A photo I took last week on the Golden Gate Bridge, San Fransisco, CA

Walking the 45 minute journey across the Golden Gate Bridge, I saw the sign pictured above. Then my memory was sparked: oh yeah. I'm standing on suicide central.

About a year ago I saw the 2006 film, The Bridge, which investigates the high rate of suicides off the windy and treacherous (I now know from experience) Golden Gate Bridge. Filming for 10,000 hours in 2004 director Eric Steel managed to capture 23 jumps. He gathered interviews from witnesses and family members of the victims. Steel said in a filming application for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area that he intended "to capture the powerful, spectacular intersection of monument and nature that takes place every day at the Golden Gate Bridge." This was only partially the truth; he was directly inspired to film the bridge by the 2003 New Yorker article Jumpers.

The opening sequence is Koyaanisqatsi-esq in it's concentrated  footage of one object, sometimes sped up, focusing on people interacting with the bridge, with no narration; just music. The people laugh and walk, kite board, take photos, work construction. Some stop and look out at the magnificent view or pause to touch the metal cables. The frequency of these close shots increase, and the pause for contemplation starts to seem more sinister, or sad. The tension builds. Finally one of the people looking out... jumps. 

 These are some chilling facts from Wikipedia in their article about the Golden Gate Bridge,

•  "More people die by suicide at the Golden Gate Bridge than at any other site in the world."

• "By 2005, this count exceeded 1,200 and new suicides were occurring about once every two weeks."

• "The California Highway Patrol removed 70 apparently suicidal people from the bridge [in 2006]."

• "As of 2006, only 26 people are known to have survived the jump."

•  "After a fall of approximately four seconds, jumpers hit the water at around 75 mph or approximately 120 km/h."

• "The fatality rate of jumping is roughly 98%."

The blue crisis counseling sign -- which was the only one I saw -- is damaged and worn. It expresses a hopelessness. Obviously people have been fecklessly putting stickers over it; the sign's message helpless to permanent defacement as some remove the stickers in vain to keep the message visible. It says the problem is too big for the tiny sign to solve. 
Below is The Bridge in its entirety. 

Insert Animal, Insert Verb, I Swoon.

Hi-larious photographic viewdinggles of cats from the 1900s

Have you ever seen films and photos from the turn of the 20th century and scoffed at how simple-minded people must have been? Some stereoscopes of cats dressed in people clothes... hours of fun right? Pfft! What would you do, just look at a still photo and laugh to yourself or with friends, and just move onto the next image? What's that about? I bet after the ego stroking remarks you make, you almost feel like their innocence should be revered and respected, because feeling such hubris about your own young mind can only lead to some kind of big gotcha-moment in the near future where our brains melt from all the stimulation, and the ghosts of the past smirk at us beyond the grave, and then we feel so embarrassed...

Well, at the turn of the 21st century, with the progression of the world wide web, decades of Oscar-winning films, and the mores of comedy changing and advancing all the time, some of the most popular and enjoyable videos available are no more intricate or thought provoking than those of the previous century.

10 Pugs Who Look Like Things

Lately I've found myself on Buzzfeed.com at least five times a day. It's really too captivating.  The site is full of very quick, silly, insightful, bits of news and observations, owing much of their material to photos and videos of cute animals. While they have a section of their site dedicated to the squeezy-fuzzyuzums, those images sneak their way into most categories of news and information (much to my delight).

Time to time, as I watch a 5 minute long video of a duck chewing on grass, giggling like a 1 year old with keys dangling in front of them, I will remember my favorite movies: Magnolia, Rushmore, Blue Velvet. I do have a refined palate!  Don't I?

Why am I so enthralled with animals doing such banal things? Take for example the video below, Hamlet the Mini Pig - Goes Down the Stairs. On the very surface, this is a pig walking down the stairs. The dramatic theme is Hamlet's hunger (for that oatmeal) which drives him to defy all odds and go down the stairs. The nuts and bolts of this film, really, is a pig walking down the stairs.
It is one of the best things I have ever seen and it has over 1 million hits on YouTube.



If you liked that, then Baby Turtle eating a raspberry is for you. (Or the more risque, but equally endearing, Tortoise Having Sex With a Shoe, Squeaking).


What it comes down to is, amid all the fast-paced music videos and plot-twisting feature films, it is a timeless fact that humans want to relate to animals. We enjoy seeing animals do things that remind us of ourselves. We can't know what animals are thinking, so when they do something silly, we appreciate the moment as a fluke. That's why I can watch a pig attempt to walk down the stairs for a solid minute. Watching a tiny animal struggle to adapt to a household object humans have mastered is cute. It's cute because the animal has it's situational short-comings, which reminds us of our differences, but their determination is something we both share.
 It warms a place in everyone's heart to see animals living life and trying new things, not just hanging around like a lump. I could sit on my ass and watch that for hours.