October 15, 2006
Junk Apparel - eat your heart out!
So I've been working downtown in San Francisco near the Civic Center BART station (not the cleanest friendliest area of town). On my way to my 28 story office building I have to walk through three gritty blocks dressed in my nicest business wear toting a laptop in a fancy briefcase and all the bums love to give me a hard time.
Just the other day some guy asked me for money and then spit on me WHEN I GAVE HIM SOME... I don't make a habbit of handing out change but the guy looked sort of upbeat and asked in a friendly way so I gave him some loose change. Wow, then the other day coming home from work some guys across the street chucked a lime at me. It's just a weird place to be and I stand out like a sore, young, rich thumb.
Okay, the real purpose of this post... I went exploring over lunch the other day and toured the City Hall. It was really cool, I learned all about San Francisco and even some about California (did you know the state is named after a female Indian warrior named "Kalifa" who used to live here?) If you ever get the chance, take the tour! So on my way of exploring I found these cool buildings, one of which was some sort of school many years back. Now it's all boarded up but I think there's probably something going on inside. The outside is what really matters in this case however, it's all covered with Jack's logo! Check the pictures below > >
there's the Junk Apparel logo!
this awesome mural covers the entire West side of the building... it's pretty intense.
side view: street, meeters, lights, beautiful architecture in a crappy part of town... It reminds me of most of Rome
Posted by pocket at 02:43 AM | Comments (1)
October 14, 2006
Stanford Art Museum
I've been adventuring around Palo Alto a bit lately and came across the Stanford Art School/Museum. It's pretty cool, having just visited the art museums in Paris and Italy... I can honestly say that Stanford has done pretty well for a U.S. based institution, they even had egyptian stuff and a mummy!
I really enjoyed the architecture of the school and the art gardens surrounding the museum. Students whizzing to and from class, many of them setting up canvases to do practice sketches or paintings of the bronze sculptures outside.
entrance to the Stanford Art Museum
outside - murals with a frieze and pediment on the left
more murals
palm tree outside of the museum
This is a crazy black squirrel I found in a bush just outside the museum... I didn't realize that squirrels could be black like this so I had to take a picture. You will also notice the blurring and refracting going on with my wide angle lense. The camera I am using here is the Canon PowerShot SD600 Digital Elph with a clip on wide angle lense from Digital Concepts that I got off Amazon.
inside the Stanford Art Museum, Greek pottery, the yellow room
wooden horse sculpture...
Hoover Tower - Herbert Hoover attended Stanford and built this tower (which is now sort of a library). It's got a great view... but I'm not sure how earthquake resistant it is? You may notice the squirrel on the grass just in front of the tower... There are lots of squirrels at Stanford, just like there are lots of raccoons at the University of Colorado.
Posted by pocket at 01:37 AM | Comments (0)
December 09, 2005
Soul Meets Body - Cerebral Art
It's been a fun week with so many cool "ending" lectures and it has also been a bit emotional (it always feels deeper during the end of the semester) some of my friends are actually graduating and beginning their professional lives this time so it's really energizing for me.
On to the point: check out this severely-beautiful music video by Deathcab for Cutie, it's so simple and pure and yet so touching and deeply moving to me. It's a song I have always liked and this video takes the experience even further. I posted the video right here on so you can just click the link and watch it right in the browser. If for some reason the video won't play use the second link to update your Quicktime software to the newest revision, Quicktime 7 HD. Watch the video closely FIRST and then read on in this post below.
Death Cab for Cutie - Soul Meets Body Musiv Video
My take on the video: For me it is an analogy of music to life. It is about the time your soul meets your body and the ambiguity that surrounds the process of life. As the lead singer walks through the forest, nature surrounds him with foliage and animals. He begins singing (creation unfolds) and you see bits of goo or fungus seeping out of crevasses and trees which symbolize our birth and emergence from mother earth. The notes rise or "grow up" and begin their ascent in life out of the forest and through the sky. they begin close to nature. As the song unfolds the notes travel through many different places which symbolize the spending of life... We see the notes facing the challenges of life, crossing the road and being blown around, huddling by the light* to keep warm. One of the first notes to go astray on this journey is coaxed by a young girl who then captures and entraps the note. At first the note struggles to become free once more and you see it tapping away at the lid but tragically without freedom the note dies and the young girl looks on, tapping at the side of the jar. The second note is lost as the group enters into the core of a city and has completely left nature. It has resisted temptations of many sorts but gets hung up on razor-wire, an analogy for war and politics. Just as young men and women give their lives for our country (and others) this note has been lost (prematurely? or was that its purpose) and we see another note which gets hung up in a similar way, resting on technology (the telephone wire)... As the song nears its end and the notes continue their journey we begin to see water and dead leaves that are reminiscant of the opening segment of living nature, we recognize a cycle. One of the final notes struggles along (in old age) and crawls its last paces in a sandy embankment. In stark contrast to the sandy death, another note is shown hung up on a fence, almost over... frozen forever in a scene of purpose, "trying to get somewhere". None of the notes are flying any more, they have each traveled their path to it's end and the life is almost gone. Youth has been lost and there is hardly anything that resembles the opening scenes of the video besides the ongoing music being performed... the song of life unchanged for each of us. The notes of our lives deviate but the song remains. There is a distinct feeling of sadness with the images of the last few dying notes in the back of our minds. Each death was moddled so carefully, tugging at a primal feeling within all of us for what it means to die and what it looks like. Once more we return to nature, but this time a different scene is shown. A beach with a sunset and clear skies is pictured. A small group of notes goes floating out to sea. Are these the notes that made it? Are they the chosen notes who did not stray from the path of "God" or is this a representation for all of us going to some sort of heaven... our soul once again alone as our body decays: dust. Music, life, is unique each time it is played out. It is a living breathing form that only exists temporarily, when soul meets body.
Remember, I Remember - by Thomas Hood
I remember, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon
Nor brought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.
I remember, I remember
The roses, red and white,
The violets and the lily-cups--
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,--
The tree is living yet!
I remember, I remember
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then
That is so heavy now,
The summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow.
I remember, I remember
The fir-trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from Heaven
Than when I was a boy.
Posted by pocket at 09:21 PM | Comments (0)