One of my favorite authors, Jonathan Carroll posted this on his Twitter feed and I just had to share.
Such a simple gesture, but I would bet that it caused dozens, if not hundreds of people to smile and increased the amount of joy in the world by a small, but meaningful amount.
So, I’ll try to honor this and approach my day with the attitude of “yes.”
Yesterday was a bad day. I felt alone, disconnected, and grumpy about the world and my place in it. Today is . . . better. I’m not, to be honest, jumping with joy, but I feel a bit more grounded and less angry at the world. Sometimes, it’s enough to have an ok or mediocre day.
That said, this did make me smile yesterday. I posted it a couple of other places and the cuteness quotient is damned high, but still. Ignore the notion that they are “making out” that’s just silly.
testing the if this then that service
This is not a joke.
From the ACLU:
The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. Even Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) raised his concerns about the NDAA detention provisions during last night’s Republican debate. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.
Read the full story here then please make sure you take action and contact the Senate and let them know that they are not allowed to destroy our Constitution. The bill is S 1867 and I would argue that Sens. McCain and Levin are clearly breaking their oath of office to uphold the Constitution and pose a far, far greater threat to the very meaning of American than anything any terrorists has ever done.
For those interested in actual coverage of what’s happening in NYC with the Occupy movement and the events associated with it, particularly today’s N17 marches:
Great culture-jamming idea:
So I edited this video for my GA position at school, which is 12 hours/week working for the marketing department (in addition to my 7 hours for my Teaching assignment). Not great film-making by any means, but it was kind of fun to put it together.
I’ve been working on a directed study of the avant-garde in the first half of the 20th century and have spent the last 10 week or so reading about the Futurists. I came across a couple of Marinetti’s radio sintesi and decided to make them based on his scripts. This is the simpler of the two and follows his script exactly. The script was published in Michael Kirby’s book Futurist Performances and translated by Vitoria Nes Kirby.
I used sound files from Freesound.org, including:
29939__acclivity__fire1
33481__reinsamba__easter-morning-blackbird-07-04-09
67884__benboncan__lake-waves-2
The “stage” directions read: The whistle of a blackbird, envious of the crackling of a fire, ends by extinguishing the gossip of water.
A Landscape Heard: Script by FT Marinetti, Audio Assemblage by Peter Wood
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
It’s not stunning or even, to be honest, all that interesting from a sound designer point of view. Still, I felt like it might be worthwhile to actually work with his script myself instead of just reading it.
There is a new campaign that demonstrates just how prevalent abortions are and why it is an important right for all women. Go here to find out more about the campaign and you can see a few of the videos that women have recorded below.
1 in 3 Intro from Advocates for Youth on Vimeo.
1in3Campaign.org: Joy from Advocates for Youth on Vimeo.
1in3Campaign.org: Deb from Advocates for Youth on Vimeo.
1in3Campaign.org: Angela – Part 1 of 2 from Advocates for Youth on Vimeo.