End of the semester bears fruit

Well, I just finished up my fall semester on Friday and it feels great. I took a lot of pictures this semester, as well as a fair amount of reading and writing. Here are just a few of the pictures I took for my final project "Under the El".








©2009 Slothography

Shock

I got a window-seat ride to the loop and back; I definitely cannot complain.

Walking around the city in 5 degree weather, you look into someone's eyes and you're guaranteed an extension of empathy, a sort of affirmation of your mutual realities. That it is in fact cold, and we can stand here, friendly enough, silently, shivering, waiting for the light to change.

(I know, I know. I'm green here, and it's only going to get worse.)

Album fixation of the week: Clouds Taste Metallic by The Flaming Lips.

Latency II

Welcome to my series on things that I recently discovered, and that I kick myself for not discovering sooner. Of course, you probably already know about these things, but in case you don't (or haven't thought of them for a while), here's a reminder.

David LaChapelle is a photographer that I learned about in high school, but I never actually looked at his work until tonight. It's some of the most bizarre, mesmerizing color photography I've ever seen. Seriously. I should be doing homework, but I'm just glued to this online gallery.

I Have A Dream

This post is about my dream life, at its present manifestation. I'll begin with a poem by Langston Hughes, which may be rather obvious in this context, but it's a still a good poem.


What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?


If money was of no issue, my dream would be to ride my bike. Literally across the United States, camping and stopping off where I saw fit to visit. This wouldn't be a vacation, I would simply do this until I got tired of it. And when you think about it, I'd always be putting in a day's work simply pounding the pedals. That sounds way better to me than standing around in some restaurant or sitting around in an office. Obviously there's no way to get paid for this sort of thing, but when asked most people will tell you that money does not matter. They will be lying to some degree, but imagine a world where work was focused more on self-fulfillment (i.e. biking fifty miles a day). Plus I would get to see so much of the United States, or even Mexico and South America.
But I can't do this. Mostly because I wouldn't be able to pay for food, and nutrition is kind of important when you're biking like that. Too bad really. If there was ever a point in my life where I could financially pull this off (big if), it would probably occur after I was physically capable of it. It seems sometimes that the phases of our life might be out of order. On the other hand, I am young. I have a lot of dreams, and if I'm lucky a few of them might reach fruition. In the meantime, I'll still be searching for that cosmic loophole.

Wes Anderson, and then Sundance 2010

I saw Fantastic Mr. Fox last Saturday. I was pretty big into Dahl when I was a kid, so this movie was exciting from first news. I must say I thought Wes Anderson did a wonderful job adapting the Fox to the big screen. The stop motion puppetry was utilized to it's full potential, making for plenty of bizarre compositions throughout. I laughed plenty, and the soundtrack was up there with all of Anderson's work, only it seemed a bit more concentrated since he was using mostly songs by the Beach Boys. The music seemed to achieve a somewhat different effect however, blasted over scenes in his only non-live-action film. The same flaws that critics of Anderson's work will always complain of were evident in this film as well, i.e. lack of believable character and plot development, but it wasn't really a problem to my eye. I'm sure even kids could enjoy Fantastic Mr. Fox, since they replace every cuss word with the word 'cuss'. Official Sloth Rating: 4 1/2 out of 5.



With a far off look at Sundance 2010, the most interesting film yet is 'Howl', which has James Franco playing Allen Ginsberg in the trial following his publication of the famous poem by the same name. I'm sure David Cross was chagrined when they did not consider him for the role.

And as far as life decisions go lately, I'm leaning more towards teaching college level English. Good luck, me.