A Cosmic Laugh

Everyday I ride my bike down to the sailing beach. Oneday, as I was cruising across the park to south beach, a bird came swooping down out of nowhere and attacked my head with both of its little feet, leaving my hair in a mess and a sore spot on my head.

The next day, there was a sign posted at the sailing shack:

I guess I wasn't the only one. Nowadays, I hear about bird attacks all the time at the beach, but only to those riding bikes.

I suppose I'll never escape.

There is a contest to see who can come up with the best new BP logo, and the entries were equally sad as they were hilarious, for example:

http://www.logomyway.com/contestView.php?contestId=1746&utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TTP+|+Still+Leaking%2C+Still+Pissed+%28BP%29









Lighter fluid + ligher + pavement = fun








Jung Pyo Hong


Vrno




Rex Ray







What if...

Everything we know is already in our heads. We experience life to discover these things, and each time we remember something, it seems as though we are learning it for the first time.

or,

Instead of our personalities being molded by the experiences we have and what we believe to be truth, it is actually molded on the experiences we DON'T have, and what we think is true but is actually falsehood. For example, those things people choose NOT to tell you, or that experience that is still a mystery to this day. If you knew those truths, you would be a different person, given that our brains are changed by each new moment.



Olaf Hajek






Jan Dunning






Mimile Ung

Vincent Tolinet










Oh btw
There are more chickens than people in the world.


























And I've never seen paper like this before!

































Below is a piece of writing that is a little extraordinary--a little out of this world--that I wrote a few days ago, for no reason in particular. Let's just say it's not usual, but it's perceptive.



"boy did things catch my eye tonight. like i'd be talking to someone like i normally would, but then something-----would catch my eye, and there would be energy beyond my focus, in the form of a moving branch or smallest bug or you know those spider webs that glint in the sunlight?? everything of course is in a spinning vortex of life all around us that we cannot see when we are so focused on our own lives... but the molecules, they're mooooving and grooooooving concurrently with our perceptions that are somehow trying to slowwwwwww shit down, make sense to us, trying to make sense out of these molecules so we have a least the littlest chance to predict what will happen to us...


and today, alone in the humming buzzing warm sugar coated evening, walking in diluted shadows

nothing was opaque

everything had light shining through it, and when i mean everything i mean even your thoughts, like if you had two thoughts and you put them next to each other there would be a ray of light glistening through the cracks, like no matter what the thought is there will be light, and infinite possibility, behind it-


and where did that glistening spider web go? and who will see it next? but just because there isn't someone to see the spider web does not mean it doesn't exist.

and where does sound go when time passes by? there should be a giant filing container of all the sounds that ever have happened, and you should be able to open it and hear an egg being cracked over someone's head, whenever you flyin' felt like it-

that filer would be awfully convenient for the person who does not appreciate sound when it's actually happening. so maybe i shall continue on my merry way, mooovin and groooovin through all this molecule shilt, and enjoy it as it's happening, so that i will never miss the luxury of a sound-filing-system"













A recent article discusses how technology literally gets into our heads-

“The person and the various parts of their brain and the mouse and the monitor are so tightly intertwined that they’re just one thing,” said Anthony Chemero, a cognitive scientist at Franklin & Marshall College. “The tool isn’t separate from you. It’s part of you.”

Chemero’s experiment, published March 9 in Public Library of Science, was designed to test one of Heidegger’s fundamental concepts: that people don’t notice familiar, functional tools, but instead “see through” them to a task at hand, for precisely the same reasons that one doesn’t think of one’s fingers while tying shoelaces. The tools are us.

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/heidegger-tools/#ixzz0sCnrsrHP

Katy's Gallery 2

I recieved an iPhone as a graduation gift. At first, I believed it to be superfluous as I did not need much more than to text or call people. Applications did not seem appealing to my simplistic attitude.


Then, I found Trippingfest.








As you can see, I've become quite obsessed. The one below looks to me like a space vortex.


I've also been using my artistic ability in other ways, for example:








Here is the second installment of my ideal gallery.



"Art is the sex of the imagination" ~George J. Nathan




Damon Soule, of course.





Ted Vasin







Inka Essenhigh

(how many faces do you see in this painting?)

Yago Hortal

Robert Hardgrave

Irina Vinnick

Synack's Underground

This artist sneaks into the old drainage tunnels in his home country of Australia to produce these extraordinary photos. Synack uses LED lights, sets for an extra long exposure time, and personally runs through the tunnels to create this lit-up magnificence. While he is not running through the tunnels, he is running away from angry policemen.

http://www.emptykingdom.com/main/featured/synack/

I'm about to get all philosophical on you.

Since the earth is one, and all of our energy is part of a larger whole, everything we do effects everything else that occurs on earth. For example, you coughing right now could cause the paper on your desk to flutter away which would cause your mom to come upstairs and ask about the ruckus which dominoed to your brother running down the block without pants on, etc, which would eventually cause the Blackhawks to win the Stanley Cup in all of ONE MINUTE.

You may wonder how such minuscule energies could cause something halfway around the world to happen. The butterfly effect, if you will, would have to occur extremely fast for your cough to eventually cause the Hawks to seize victory.

But, if time was slowed down, I mean way down, to a .00000000000000000001 of a second, then distance would no longer matter. If we were able to see that slowly, we could see every little chain event that led up to Kane's game winning goal.

What if humans are actually living in a false sense of time?

What if we live in fast motion?
What if we live in slow motion?

Now that is a Trippingfest.

"Why, when a housefly flaps his wings, a breeze goes round the world; when a speck of dust falls to the ground, the entire planet weighs a little more; and when you stamp your foot, the earth moves slightly off its course. Whenever you laugh, gladness spreads like the ripples in a pond; and whenever you're sad, no one anywhere can really be happy."
~The Phantom Tollboth by Norton Juster

Summer Summit

Ilana Manolson

There is a revolutionary school out there in which the students teach themselves--no grading and less than 10 adults. It could change the way the world works!

• "Students are free, all day, every day, to do what they wish at the school, as long as they don't violate any of the school's rules. "

• "Courses occur only when students take the initiative to organize them, and they last only as long as the students want them. "

• "Most of their 'teaching' is of the same variety as can be found in any human setting; it involves answering sincere questions and presenting ideas in the context of real conversations."

• "Students also have access to a pond, a field, and a nearby forest for outdoor play and exploration. "

• "More important, former students report that they are happy with their lives."

Would you send your child there?

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/200808/children-educate-themselves-iv-lessons-sudbury-valley.



I personally would.





























I love how Alice in Wonderland seemingly makes nonsense, but actually has quite a bit of logic involved. For example,

"The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday-- but never jam today" ~The Red Queen



While it seems impossible to figure out what this means, we must remember that everything is possible...even a legit explanation-


"Rather than absorbing the past and the future into itself, the present is divided by an infinitely expanding past and future in both directions at once. It would be even more correct to say that the present does not exist. A ceaseless rupture occurs in the meeting of the past and the future in which these two are continually crashing against one another...It is always already gone and always coming but never now."


So basically, we live in a world of a colliding past and future, and the middle is what we call the present. But the present is simply an illusion of the colliding stage. (Put that in your pipe and smoke it!)








This year, I became obsessed with glass art. Here is most of my work from the year.















My fish, Jesus, sacrificed himself for the sins of fish-manity the other day. The image of his beady little eyes going down the toilet will never be forgotten, yet his spirit will live on eternally.



So anyway, I got a new fish, and named him Pollo.


Yes, that means "chicken" in spanish.

Ponder Play

While working at the sailing beach, I've had extra time to read those books people thought I would like. My friend Michelle recommended a book to me, Play, by Stuart Brown. It has been helpful in understanding my fear of growing up, and helped me to realize it's natural, and even advantageous, to have this fear.





First, humans have the longest childhood out of any species. Since we are brought up with close watch by our parents, we can retain our childishness for the first 20 or so years of our lives and still survive. Furthermore, by keeping our curiosity and eagerness to develop, which we have while we are children, we might be more successful in the long run--

"Since one of the primary hallmarks of being juvenile is the desire and capacity to play, what would happen if our brains kept juvenile elements such as growth and adaptability long past the period of our obvious longed childhoods? What if the maintenance of very useful juvenile qualities in the brain is the secret to success?"






If we use our childish instincts and continue to look for answers throughout life, we will have a grander understanding of the universe. If we refuse to settle down, and reject the all-knowing mindset of maturity, we would have a richer perspective on life, as well as a more lighthearted and enjoyable existence--

"Otters are naturally extremely playful and are always attracted to new and interesting things. Their natural search for novelty and avoidance of boredom leads them to try the task a number of different ways. By having fun and mixing it up, the otters were learning far more about the way their world works than if they had simply performed the initial task flawlessly."







Finally, because I live so youthfully, my heart and body will stay youthful as well--

"Many studies have demonstrated that people who continue to play games, who continue to explore and learn throughout life, are not only much less prone to dementia and other neurological problems, but are also less likely to get heart disease and other afflictions."







So, I guess I'm not crazy after all. Maybe you are?













"It is human to have a long childhood; it is civilized to have an even longer childhood."



























Ponder this...
Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded, and the atoms in your right hand probably came from a different star than your left hand.


[whoa]



Glass- Josh Simpson
Paintings- Raquel Aparicio