I am a voyeur in nature. I prefer to analyze, evaluate and not get too
intimate. It’s been manifested in almost every relationship I’ve had
with every thing or person I’ve met. I get close, examine, enjoy, and
interact, but rarely do I allow anything in too deep. With
photography, the art itself seems to be voyeuristic, but in reality, it
allows an openness that is expressed in a passive manner. The image is
captured and stored in a light-tight box, only to be viewed and enjoyed
later (although digital capture adds a bit of immediacy). Thus while I
may be placing myself in my photography, it is only when it is viewed
that the cycle completes itself.

Isn’t it weird how things always seem to happen at opportune (or maybe extremely inopportune) times?

I just finished reading a passage from The Marriage of Sense and Soul by Ken Wilbur, which I received for Xmas in 1999 and picked up to re-read/finish reading.

The excerpt discusses Kant’s Critique of Judgement and goes in a lot of detail that I don’t feel like going into, but these lines should sum it up in a thought-provoking manner: “And if ART is the great bridge between science and morals, is not world salvation in the hands of the artists?”

– In the Denon: Weezer – Maladroit

I love SF when it gets quiet and more peaceful. That’s not to say I don’t like things to be going on, but it’s like an instant vacation. SF is transformed into a more empty city, where you have to be even more creative to enjoy yourself. There are parking spots in parts of town that never have them (which doesn’t help a carless person) but walking through town has a different feel to it.

So if you don’t know it already, I love MUNI. Ever since I moved here, it’s been my most reliable form of public transportation (OK, so there are like only two options, and I rarely ride BART b/c of where I am usually going).

Well, I was at Villians in the Haight and saw that someone is making MUNI shirts which I’ve been wanting for a while. Unfortunately, the designs have a logo of the company that makes them on the bottom of the front of the shirts, so today I decided to give myself a DIY project to make my own MUNI shirts.

This is the logo design that I think I’ll use for the first one, and then go from there…

I’ve been sluggish of late as have been a lot of my friends. Don’t know what it is but I suspect it’s the fact that the days were getting shorter until yesterday. Now that it’s the day after the solstice as the days get longer and we humans get more of the sun’s energy hopefully I’ll snap outta this.

One good thing is that I’ve got to see Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers twice! Saw it on opening night and once again three nights later. Definitely a great flick, and although I didn’t like Gollum the first time around, I really did enjoy him the next. I’ll probably go see it one more time this holiday season.

Listening to some classical stuff now on KUSF.

Ah, you know you are in San Francisco when you awaken to the sound of a German-born Austrian singing along to Bob Marley reggae. That’s how my day started today, then I puked from drinking too much last night.

I forgot about this bit from TAZ (by Hakim Bey) that I thought was pretty interesting:

Art in the World of Art” has become a commodity; but deeper than that lies the problem of re-presentation. In the TAZ art as a commodity will simply become impossible; it will instead be a condition of life. Mediation is hard to overcome, but the removal of all barries between artists and “users” of art will tend toward a condition in which (as A.K. Coomaraswamy described it) “the artist is not a special sort of person, but every person is a special sort of artist”

Well, I was in LA for the past five days, and am glad to be back in SF.

While there, I kept thinking to myself, this or that is so LA. Of course being in LA, I guess that’s OK, but for my own tastes, it wasn’t quite the right energy. However, I definitely managed to have a great time, even going to the obligatory party in the Hollywood hills at a “mansion” with a breathtaking view of the expanse of city lights and haze.

I’ve also decided that I may be a bit too laid back. It seems that everyone has things to tell me about things going wrong or not quite the way they had planned. Perhaps it’s just the timing, or perhaps I should have higher expectations from myself? I don’t know what it is… luckily, I did see an unauthorized charge on my credit card, so that’s something that’s gone wrong for me so I can feel a bit relaxed in the knowledge that my life, too, is not perfect…

OK, so I’ve found some optimism in the misery of friends. No I’m not experiencing schadenfreude, but rather I think it’s just the way I try to look at all things positively, because ultimately whatever happens does, so you should make the most of every situation.

So I used schadenfreude, don’t hate me. You know you’ve seen this word all over the place lately. What’s the deal with that anyhow. If you want the Webster definition here it is. I came across it a while back when I was trying to learn more new words all the time for my budding journalistic career (which didn’t go longer than a year in college, when I realized I hated working on hard deadlines and that’s a big part of the journalistic world – well, that, long hours and being underpaid…)

So back to my perverse optimism. Lately a lot of things are going shitty for a lot of my friends, and two of my closest friends I’ve recently learned have been writing a lot (like I am now too). What I like is that writing, as any other outlet for expression, is a wonderful thing. In fact, I really like writing now (as in the writing on paper or other surface) more than I ever have in the past. Perhaps it’s techno overkill that’s bringing me back to analog indulgences, but it’s fun to write. Of course I’ve penned a few letters with a Sharpie, and it expressly says on the Sharpies that they are NOT for letter writing… oh well…

Continue reading perverse optimism →

Wow, it’s already November. Since I don’t post much, I should probably at least link to the photo that I am shooting each day, which in this instance wasn’t the most intriguing, so I won’t embed it, but if you want, check it and my series out here.