I think it's odd that people can begin to exist in the immaterial realm.

...

web 2.0 bring people together or allowing a facade of existence apart?



flight of the conchords first season--- so good.

Urban Exploration

Carrot Rope

The 90's, a time where men could use a tarp as a backdrop, wear oversized raincoats in sun and awkwardly dance.

'

These days of complacency are gone, but things like this remind me of it's existence.

I don’t know what it is. But. I stumble upon people who share incredible pieces of their lives with me, and many of them, I only see for a couple hours (or less). They soon become swallowed whole by the world and I never see them again. And, there I am, left with a small fracture of who they are and I wonder why they tell me these things in the first place.

Dave: A counter-cultural 20-something poet from a suburb outside of Houston. Along the way of stop-and-go Austin traffic, he tells me about the love of his life, a blind performance poet living in St. Louis. She performs her work, without ever seeing the reaction of an audience. She is an Atheist Muslim, who writes about the neo-empirical forms of race-relations and identity.  We talk about court-ship and expression of love. He believes that people’s expression of love should not just be through sex, as he sees it only as a momentary act of pleasure. He believes the most intimate moments two people can share is complete honesty, openness and vulnerability. He then tells me that this woman he loves, will never love him back. At this point, we are at our destination, I smile and he steps out of my car and I drive away.

Tantra-Zawadi: A fierce woman who lives in Brooklyn. I spent the morning attending a workshop on multi-media artistic expression that she took part in. Tantra is an advocate for HIV/AIDS awareness, and travels throughout the country reading her poetry, screening her movie and advocating for HIV/AIDS prevention.

And, this guy:

Who, after his performance, told me that the only reason he really writes is because it is the only thing that makes sense to him surrounded by chaos. 

Google: is it Making Us Stupid?

It is no secret that I am a self-prescribed, paradoxical postmodernist. I have been struggling with  the idea of the Internet, the differing forms of reality and what makes these varying degrees of reality "more real"- or valid than one another-
Along the way:

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Re-post (because it is that good)


And
"Meditations on First Cybersophy"-Bill Pena

Seinfeld- A View on life

I have a very kind of Seinfeld life. It has a lot of somethings, but eventually, they all result in a lot of nothing. Over time, character builds and hilarity ensues.

For those of you who don’t know, I was in a car accident a month and half ago. Four cars, actually, rear-ended, a sort-of-almost-defying- physics on a rain-slicked Texan highway. This chain reaction was instigated by an irrational New York driver, at 50 mph as the highway split. In a swift kick of irony, I rear-ended my best friend. After many tears, shock, cops and seeing the car, my car, driven from Washington--> Texas completely obliterated, I climbed into her bruised and battered, ’03 Ford Focus, the car that I rear-ended.

We stopped at a gas station so I could ice my wrist, the only injury I received, with frozen popsicles (ice wrist: then eat, of course this made sense!) And as a stubborn act of defiance, we drove Mr. Catfish, a Soul/Creole, and restaurant on the East side of un-gentrified Austin, as originally planned.

Silently, I ate my fried catfish, red beans and rice. I stared at the fossilized form of an alligator head on the wall, and looked out the barred windows outside to see people hanging out under the tree at the vacant lot next door. I realized, that if there is a God, and he/she/it exists, and they wanted me to be dead, I would be. I stared down at my now swollen wrist, and realized the cuts resemble a deep suicide attempt.

Since then, I have fallen in love with my bike, Penny Lane. I have joined a non-profit board with Austin Poetry Society, been accepted to amazing graduate schools, received scholarships and found time to take photos with my awesome garage sale find, a $5.00 accidental-light leak 35m camera. And, most importantly, I have learned the value and freedom of individual movement that a car brings.

Penny Lane <3

Like the previous post before, to me, there is nothing more freeing than the transitory time between one point and another, where you are not bound to obligation. And, like a Seinfeld episode, it is going this post is going to end abruptly and without a concise resolution. The following episode includes: A thick accented Ukrainian, the internet, Better Business Bureau and Kmart.


Blogs to come:
-Gentrification and marginalization of minorities, or How Everyone and Their Mom is Moving to Austin, Texas.

The open road and movement forward, from one point to another represent the grey area, the transitory beauty in the time-in-between, the intricate façade of the momentary lapse of time where you are not bound tightly to obligations, responsibilities, places or people. 

The open road is freedom. And it is movement. And it is rebirth. It is all of these things, and to me, it has become the purest form of individual freedom.

**

Very recently, my friends and I had a road trip to New Orleans.  I spent 10 hours in a car through an East Texan sunrise, weaving my way through I-10E, built on top of swampland and eventually ending up in a city comprised largely of non-conforming vagabonds. 

I spent much of my time wandering throughout parts of the city away from Downtown and Uptown. The more I roamed the streets, the more I realized that the town itself is one large clustering juxtaposition in transition and rebuilding.

There are abandoned, vacated homes scattered on almost every block.  Some have chipping paint,  and some have windows and doors are covered with cheap plywood two blocks away from multi-million dollar old plantation homes.  This became a symbol of wealth distribution and classism for me that weaved its way into my entire trip.

I guess, after a lot of time, New Orleans, to me,  is simply going through a stage of rebirth. The city is reforming it's identity and  ideology. It is figuratively experiencing the time of movement, progression, of not being bound to obligation or responsibility, and of change. 

However, this open road for the city isn't a smooth beautiful Texan sunrise, or an elaborate highway infrastructure built on swampland. It is an aggressive in your-face reminder of all the mistakes that were made Post-Katrina. At the same time, I saw the city itself, desperately tried to distance itself from it's painful past and discover new ways of creating a sense of self.