happy halloween!

from a yahoo! instant message conversation on 10/27/03:

ssean54: are YOU going to dress up this Halloween???
lashonhara: i'm not su-u-ure!
lashonhara: i was thinking about dressing up like a surgical scrub.
lashonhara: like the t.v. show!
lashonhara: i saw some guy in a scrub outfit last year and thought he was totally hot. he pulled it off.
lashonhara: i've been obsessed with it for almost a year now.
lashonhara: i think doctors are sexy.
ssean54: they never did it for me
lashonhara: to each his own!
ssean54: that's right
lashonhara: and me against the music!
lashonhara:
ssean54: you can be britney- i'll be madonna
ssean54: 2 ho's
lashonhara: that works!
lashonhara: get on the floor, baby, lose control
lashonhara: just work your body and let it go!
ssean54: profound!
ssean54:
lashonhara: totally meaningful!
ssean54: very deep
lashonhara: such insight into her personal philosophy and worldview.
lashonhara: clearly an empowering feminist anthem!
ssean54: clearly
ssean54: did stevie nicks write it for her?
lashonhara: i don't think so — it must have been bob dylan!
lashonhara: or maybe bruce springsteen!
ssean54: sophie b hawkins
lashonhara: stephen sondheim!
ssean54: joan baez
lashonhara: carole king!
ssean54: janis ian
lashonhara: ian?
ssean54: yes
lashonhara: i was thinking janis joplin
ssean54: her too
ssean54:
lashonhara: actually, i think shakespeare came back from the grave because he felt he needed to work with britney.
lashonhara: one last ballad, y'know?
ssean54: of course
lashonhara: britney and madonna, that is.
lashonhara: who wouldn't be moved to return from the dead after that mtv publicity stunt kiss?
lashonhara: all my people in the crowd, grab a partner, take it down!
lashonhara: pure poetry.
ssean54: i think tracy chapman may have contributed a verse
ssean54: it's like "we are the world"
ssean54: all these great artist contributing
ssean54: for a good cause!
ssean54: i'm sure all the proceeds will go to starving children in kenya
lashonhara: i'm up against the speaker, tryin' to take on the music. it's like a competition: me against the beat. i wanna get in the zone!
ssean54: moving! I'm emotionally drained
lashonhara: oh, the humanity!
ssean54: britney's up there with gandhi
lashonhara: it speaks to the human condition, the universal struggle for survival!
ssean54: coming full circle and being one within the universe
lashonhara: the never-ending pursuit of happiness, getting "in the zone"!
ssean54: and the journey it entails
lashonhara: and getting on the dancefloor is just a metaphor for participating in life!
ssean54: the zone being — the universe!
lashonhara: you can't just sit on the sidelines and expect for the zone to find you!
lashonhara: you must "get on the floor, baby, lose control, just work your body and let it go!"
ssean54: accomplishing life's dreams!
ssean54: a very analytical approach to life
lashonhara: it's also very much one pop princess passing the torch onto another, very much evoking a mother-daughter relationship.
lashonhara: madonna sings, "hey, britney! you say you want to lose control? come over here, i got something to show ya!"
lashonhara: it's so deeply moving!
lashonhara:
ssean54: it is - i feel reborn
ssean54: britney has such a prolific brain and heart- all her work is to change the world for the better
lashonhara: to quote another madonna song, "makes me want to pray!"
lashonhara:
ssean54: the song also touches on the plight of abused women
ssean54: as well as those suffering of debilitating diseases
lashonhara: i'm not religious, but i feel so moved.
lashonhara: makes me want to pray
lashonhara: pray that britney will always be here!
ssean54: they have a strong spiritual bond
lashonhara: clearly, both have such solid foundations in christian teachings.
lashonhara: madonna, named after the holy virgin.
lashonhara: and britney, named after saint brittania of lourdes
ssean54: britney is the high priestess of everything spiritual and ethereal
lashonhara: when i seek peace, i contemplate britney's navel.
ssean54: it's like the buddha
lashonhara: the buddha on atkins!
ssean54: the buddha after liposuction
lashonhara: the buddha would never get lipo!
ssean54: why not?
lashonhara: because the buddha accepts and loves his body as it is.
ssean54: oh right — of course
lashonhara: the buddha does not seek to change the universe but leave it as unchanged as possible.
lashonhara: that is the key to rising above the cycle of samsara and achieving nirvana.
lashonhara: om, shanti!
ssean54: samsara?
lashonhara: the eternal cycle of suffering.
lashonhara: you should read a book on zen buddhism. it's very enlightening.
lashonhara:
ssean54: i will!
lashonhara: although, listening to "me against the music" constantly for a week would probably achieve the same thing!
ssean54: well, its certainly simplistic
lashonhara: all right, hon, i am packed up and ready to go. i'll chat with you tomorrow, ka-a-ay???
ssean54: k!

didi on television!

carol's roommate, didi, who works as a producer for msnbc, apparently made her debut in front of the camera the other day.  way to go, miss dionne!

carol captured the moment using her trusty digital camera — a veritable "screenshot."  (ack!  geek alert!)

fooly cooly

as i mentioned last week, the japanese animé mini-series fooly cooly is on cartoon network, monday through thursday at midnight, but only until next week.  i have been obsessed with this cartoon ever since i caught two episodes of it back in august.  as my friend carol said when i mentioned the show to her last night, i had no idea what was going on, but i didn't change the channel.  the show is, in a word, mesmerizing.

the plot is difficult to describe because of its complexity and sometimes contradictory themes.  the story is about a young boy's coming-of-age while, at the same time, involves an alien conspiracy to destroy the planet and homogenize the universe.  naota, the main character, is dealing with his feelings about his father, his classmates, and his brother's ex-girlfriend and suddenfly finds himself literally struggling with his extraterrestrial, vespa-riding housekeeper whose incessant attempts to hit naota in the head with her guitar ultimately result in conjuring several mechanical monstrosities from his skull.  the result of this hodge-podge is in turn breathtaking, hilarious and poignant, thanks to the impressionistic storytelling, beautiful artwork and brilliant animation.

yes, it's confusing, but the effort spent puzzling out the details is incredibly rewarding, trust me.  over the next two weeks, cartoon network will air all six episodes.  watch it, if you are so inclined.

if you happen to be interested in learning more about the show, here are a few links:

• an episode guide, starting with episode 1 (duh).  links to the other episodes are at the top of the page.
• an interview with kazuya tsurumaki, the director and creator of fooly cooly.
• a selection of images from the show.  yes, the page is in french.
• video clips from the first two episodes from another french website.  the dialogue is in japanese and the subtitles are in french, just to make it even more confusing for ya.

panda cam!

check out Bai Yun and her new baby, the unnamed two-month old male cub, on the San Diego Zoo Panda Cam!

i know — i normally don't post on tuesdays, but this was too good to keep to myself.

bang, bang, my baby shot me down

last friday night, i went to see kill bill, vol. 1 starring uma thurman as the bride and the most fabulous lucy liu as o-ren ishii.  while the fight scenes are ultra-violent, the storytelling, the action sequences, the costumes, the animation, the soundtrack and the set design are all breathtaking.  if you can stomach the sight of fake blood-spray (and lots of it), go see this movie.

sketch 006

sketching on the train platform this morning, as well as on the subway.  a group of kids commented that my drawings were "hot" and that i could "make mad money" with them.  one kid, apparently impressed, exclaimed, "he draws with a pen!"

later, a lady who sat next to me said that i definitely had talent and should pursue what i love, although she also insisted that i should stick with computers because "there's a future in it."

south park just keeps gettin' betta...

the season premiere of south park is tonight and, apparently, makes reference to queer eye for the straight guy.  everybody tune in to comedy central tonight at 10 pm!

in other tv-related news, i'm very excited that the entire run of fooly cooly (also known as furi kuri or, more succinctly, flcl) is being rebroadcast on adult swim for the next couple of weeks.  it's a weird, quirky animé cartoon about angst, adolescence, aliens, and automatons.  also watch that if you can.

and just to prove that i'm well-rounded and not just about animated tv shows, here's a list of stuff i've been reading:

• 32 stories by adrian tomine
• sleepwalk and other stories by adrian tomine
• summer blonde by adrian tomine
• one hundred demons by lynda barry
• lemon by lawrence krauser
• cathedral by raymond carver

the first four are comic book compilations courtesy of carol, the last two are prose (short stories and a novel) courtesy of joe.  also thanks to joe, carol and i got to see (and hear) patti labelle this past sunday when she performed with broadway inspired voices, a gospel choir made up of professional broadway singers.  i'm getting so much culture!

so what are you reading and watching?

sean day 2003!

it's sean's birthday today.  wish him a happy one!

blinky blinky blink!

aren't you just wild about the view from our hotel room?

drunks?  drug addicts?  it's a wonder that we're not!

montreal was a blast, although, strangely, i didn't take many pictures.  music, as always, contributed to a lot of the fun during my time with sean, and we have added quite a few songs to our repertoire.  unfortunately, having heard most of them for the first time in clubs, we don't know any titles or artists, just snippets of lyrics — the one exception being the dance anthem we composed based on our favorite yahoo! messenger emoticon.

on hiatus 'til 10/17

i'm on vacation starting tomorrow, so i won't be posting here until after i get back.  i'm meeting up with sean to head up to montreal again for this year's black & blue event.  (the pic above is from our trip last year.)  my next update will be on friday, october 17th.  'til then, take care!

mornings, part three

another shot of the morning sky and sun.

the front stoop of a building on my way to the C train.  i thought the bundled stack of magazines for recycling was impressive.

the new aol time warner building at columbus circle (although i guess it's now just "time warner" since they decided to remove "aol" from their company name).  it's one of the first things i see coming out of the subway in the morning.

suits 208 foregrounds

hooray hooray!  pages 1 - 8 are finally drawn!  now it's time for the dreaded Revision Process, as well as adding the lettering for the last four pages.  i hope to start posting everything starting from page 1 (and, hell, eventually issue #1) so that my loyal reader(s?) can catch up on the actual story.

and i'm going on vacation in four days!  whoo hoo!

mornings, part 2

i cleaned up the design of the site to give it a less generic, out-of-the-box feel.  it's a decent temporary solution, but even this particular layout is fairly common among blogs and personal sites.  i'm hoping to personalize it more in days to come.  (of course, i don't expect that will happen anytime soon so, um...neither should you.)

for those of you who are tech heads out there, i tried — i mean, i really really tried — to only use css and div tags for my layouts, but the standards-compliant doctypes for xhtml and html 4.0 just do not work the same in internet explorer for the mac and the pc.  so, yes, i used tables.  forgive me!

anyway, enjoy the pics.

mornings, part 1

sunrise over brooklyn.

my unmade bed.

these are the first two in a series of photos documenting my mornings.  i'm attempting to take a fresh look at my everyday surroundings through my camera lens.

when i decided to shoot my unmade bed, i thought, "hm, what a great name for a website — unmadebeds.com."  so, at the first available opportunity, i typed the url into my web browser, and, lo and behold, there already is an unmadebeds.com, much to my chagrin.  while i half-expected this, i was not at all prepared for the surprise i received.

it turns out that unmade beds is an independent film from back in 1997 and, by strange coincidence, its website was designed and produced by thoughtbubble productions, the company i worked for right out of college.

at the bottom of the unmadebeds.com homepage is an active link to thoughtbubble.com.  since i knew that thoughtbubble productions had folded a year or two ago, i was curious to see if the link would pull up their old site.  instead, it redirected me to thoughtbubble.net, a site for a completely different web design/new media company with the same name that resides in london, england.

still, talk about your bad flashbacks.  ask either chris or carol, my two good friends who were also former employees of that company, and they will have horror stories to share with you from those bad old days.

if you're interested, you can still check out the original thoughtbubble.com site from back in 1997 at archive.org.