I am a Christian. It's not a religion, or a denomination; I simply believe that there is a God, and that Jesus was God, and that the way he lived his life is the way I should try and live mine. I believe that God is alive and working today, and that his main goal for us is to be our friend, and enable us to live lives that are fufilling and have purpose.
That being said, I am freaked out by this new documentary, Jesus Camp.
The synopsis, as far as i can tell from clips off YouTube (the dvd is being downloaded as I speak), is that these guys followed a christian kids camp in Colorado around for a while. It's hosted by this evangelical mega-church, and the clips i'm seeing remind me of Hitler Youth. 10 year olds are spouting words that do not belong in their mouths, talking about fighting god's enemies, how god spoke to them and told them to go talk to random people about Jesus, and a whole bunch of stuff that seems really really creepy. I understand the bias of the people who shot and edited this film, but it still quite unnerves me.
I am a youth leader. Could this sort of thing happen at my church?
jesuscampthemovie.com
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Monday, January 08, 2007
oh crap. i am.
I'm addicted to all the things i own. I'm in bondage to my checking accountand it's disgusting.
i need to move the hell away from here. it's getting hard to breathe...
Friday, December 22, 2006
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
I decide to write tonight.
What does art mean?
After all, this is an art blog. That question should be asked.
I think that we can classify art as all of the things that are cool to look at/read/listen to, and that allow us to think differently about things, but don't have a whole lot of "usefulness".
It's hard to create an effective business model or build a bridge with a photograph or an essay.
I can inspire those things with art, but creating them is not considered art.
That stuff is work.
Why?
When I make a photograph, the process of creating it is a lot more satisfying than having a cool print. And showing a cool print to people is way more fun than making it.
But I would never go buy a print, or make a copy of someone elses. Even if it was the coolest thing in the world; it wouldn't be mine.
However, when doing Calculus, I'm more than happy to take someone elses work. All I want is the finished product. The answer is all that matters. The journey to get to the answer is boring and tedious, and I do everything I possibly can to shorten the ammount of time I spend journeying.
But it takes just as much intelligence to solve a calculus problem as it does to create a photograph. Perhaps more.
But it isn't art. It's work.
What if we took math, or science, or accounting, or elctrical engineering, and started doing it in ways no one had ever thought of before.
What if all the accountants got their books together, got a lil high, and tried to be accountants in a creative way.
I've always been told there is one way to solve an equation. One right answer. That "this is the correct data that you should have gotten from your experiment if you did it right." There's one way.
But what if i thought up a new way?
It's almost impossible to make myself think in a new way about Calculus. Mostly because calculus is a very complex system, and people have been thinking about it for so long that they've pretty much figured out all of the ways to do calculus effectively.
But art is viewed as ever-changing. There is no right way to do compose music, or paint, or photograph.
Why does math have to have a "right" way and a "wrong" way?
Culturally, we have put a schizm between art and science. It is a hindrance to the advancement of the sciences, particularily math. There are free-thinking scientists out there, but they don't stray very far from the roots of their given fields.
What if science and art were the same?
What if instead of telling people how to find x, they were left to figure out what x was themselves?
What if science exepermiments is 5th grade were truly experiments, and not step by step instructions to find data?
What if there wasn't a "right" way to get the answer?
After all, this is an art blog. That question should be asked.
I think that we can classify art as all of the things that are cool to look at/read/listen to, and that allow us to think differently about things, but don't have a whole lot of "usefulness".
It's hard to create an effective business model or build a bridge with a photograph or an essay.
I can inspire those things with art, but creating them is not considered art.
That stuff is work.
Why?
When I make a photograph, the process of creating it is a lot more satisfying than having a cool print. And showing a cool print to people is way more fun than making it.
But I would never go buy a print, or make a copy of someone elses. Even if it was the coolest thing in the world; it wouldn't be mine.
However, when doing Calculus, I'm more than happy to take someone elses work. All I want is the finished product. The answer is all that matters. The journey to get to the answer is boring and tedious, and I do everything I possibly can to shorten the ammount of time I spend journeying.
But it takes just as much intelligence to solve a calculus problem as it does to create a photograph. Perhaps more.
But it isn't art. It's work.
What if we took math, or science, or accounting, or elctrical engineering, and started doing it in ways no one had ever thought of before.
What if all the accountants got their books together, got a lil high, and tried to be accountants in a creative way.
I've always been told there is one way to solve an equation. One right answer. That "this is the correct data that you should have gotten from your experiment if you did it right." There's one way.
But what if i thought up a new way?
It's almost impossible to make myself think in a new way about Calculus. Mostly because calculus is a very complex system, and people have been thinking about it for so long that they've pretty much figured out all of the ways to do calculus effectively.
But art is viewed as ever-changing. There is no right way to do compose music, or paint, or photograph.
Why does math have to have a "right" way and a "wrong" way?
Culturally, we have put a schizm between art and science. It is a hindrance to the advancement of the sciences, particularily math. There are free-thinking scientists out there, but they don't stray very far from the roots of their given fields.
What if science and art were the same?
What if instead of telling people how to find x, they were left to figure out what x was themselves?
What if science exepermiments is 5th grade were truly experiments, and not step by step instructions to find data?
What if there wasn't a "right" way to get the answer?
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
negative scan experiment
I'm always willing to try new things, so i tried this. It's dirty, low-resolution (because the negatives are so small), but i like the effect. This technique seems to bring out all of the imperfections in the negative; notice the left side (film casing popped open). I'll try scanning the print i made of this when i get it back, for comparison.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
www.nmpa.org <---BITCHES.
these weinerheads are taking down tab sites.
thats right guys. it's now illegal to take down guitar tabs.
pretty soon, it'll prbably be illegal to play someone elses songs without paying for the right to do so.
how screwed up is that?
victims:
guitartabs.com
guitarbash.com
mxtabs.com
guitartabs.cc
more are coming.
oh yeah, these guys killed Grokester too.
and do i hafta mention the RIAA suing dead people?
this has gotta end somewhere folks. The recording industry combating people who blatantly pirate illegal copies of music the release is one thing.
but this strikes the heart, man.
if you don't know what tabs are:
lets say I hear a song on a cd that i wanna learn how to play on my guitar or bass. I get out my axe, a pen and some paper and listen to it again and again while trying out fingerings on the guitar until they match up with whats coming through the speaker. Like trying to learn how to sing a song.
tabs are a notation that guitarists use to write down fingerings for songs. It used to be that one could go online and find tabs to any song you wanted to know how to play, posted by people who figured them out.
its not stealing music. its like posting lyrics online.
and now... it's illegal.
someone should freakin lock these RIAA and NMPA policy makers in the looney bin. They're skrewing over the most important part of their business: their consumers.
Our country was founded on the idea that if a large power is being unfair, people have the right to revolt. That's John Locke philosophy.
We can revolt against the music industry. It's called boycott. If they don't have consumers, they don't have a business.
Theres a place where we have to draw the line. For me, it's here.
these weinerheads are taking down tab sites.
thats right guys. it's now illegal to take down guitar tabs.
pretty soon, it'll prbably be illegal to play someone elses songs without paying for the right to do so.
how screwed up is that?
victims:
guitartabs.com
guitarbash.com
mxtabs.com
guitartabs.cc
more are coming.
oh yeah, these guys killed Grokester too.
and do i hafta mention the RIAA suing dead people?
this has gotta end somewhere folks. The recording industry combating people who blatantly pirate illegal copies of music the release is one thing.
but this strikes the heart, man.
if you don't know what tabs are:
lets say I hear a song on a cd that i wanna learn how to play on my guitar or bass. I get out my axe, a pen and some paper and listen to it again and again while trying out fingerings on the guitar until they match up with whats coming through the speaker. Like trying to learn how to sing a song.
tabs are a notation that guitarists use to write down fingerings for songs. It used to be that one could go online and find tabs to any song you wanted to know how to play, posted by people who figured them out.
its not stealing music. its like posting lyrics online.
and now... it's illegal.
someone should freakin lock these RIAA and NMPA policy makers in the looney bin. They're skrewing over the most important part of their business: their consumers.
Our country was founded on the idea that if a large power is being unfair, people have the right to revolt. That's John Locke philosophy.
We can revolt against the music industry. It's called boycott. If they don't have consumers, they don't have a business.
Theres a place where we have to draw the line. For me, it's here.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Monday, September 18, 2006
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Sunday, September 10, 2006
panning technique
this wasnt easy... i shot about 20 cars and this one came out good. you have to set the shutter for really long and follow the moving object.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Sunday, August 27, 2006
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