It Was Worth The Wait

finally, last friday a very late bday/xmas package arrived in the mail. some of the presents were wrapped in very cool superfriends wrapping paper. a few highlights from the package:

books:

• please kill me
• escape to witch mountain
• persepolis

camera:
• polaroid camera

dvds:
• the spirit of ‘76
• red dwarf series II

i’ve already read two of the books and watched the dvds. i loved the persepolis graphic novel. please kill me i enjoyed less. it was an interesting read, but man do some of those people just whine and whine. the dvds i loved. it’s been over 10 years since i’ve seen any red dwarf so i was happy to get re-acquainted with the show. and the spirit of ‘76 – well, it’s hard not to love a film that includes time travel, excellent 1970s fashion, and a cast that includes david cassidy, barbara bain, moon unit zappa, and devo to name just a few. i haven’t had the chance to try out the camera yet, but it’s high on my list. happily it takes fuji peel apart film too.

of course with good things bad things must happen. the afternoon i got the package i got in my first real scooter accident. luckily, aside from myself, no one was really hurt. i twisted my wrist and skinned up my ankle and elbow. as a result i’ve been trying to lay off using the left hand a bit.

 

The Polaroid House

holga blog has a nice interview with those responsible for the polaroid house. the polaroid house was a seemingly abandoned house that polaroid enthusiasts took over and placed their polaroids all over. the idea being that people could come take a look, leave a polaroid and take one back. i guess the idea was maybe doomed from the start to be destroyed by idiots, but that doesn’t make it not worth attempting.

 

Photography Collaboration

awhile back one of my contacts on flickr invited me to participate in a collaboration. he made a mask covering half of a frame. he then shot the roll, sent the camera to me and i shot the roll again adjusting the film to expose the other half of the frame. i then developed the film. above is one of the shots. below is a shot where the images didn’t quite overlap. also you can see where the mask started to come undone(the mask is made out of tape):

i kind of like the jaggedness caused by the mask. i’ll have to explore masks more in the future.

and finally a shot of the camera we used:

i’ve reloaded the camera and shot another roll. it will soon head back to efo to complete his part in the second part of the experiment.

 

2-Tone Covers

2 tone records: the covers. a look at cover versions that were released by various bands on the 2-tone record label. i only recently discovered(via you tube) some of the covers madness had done. i had no idea the number of covers that the specials did was quite so high, but i guess i shouldn’t be that surprised. via gmtPlus9(-15).

 

Audio Fun

my sister clued me into some fun sites. first is this site called in b flat. it’s a collection of youtube videos that you play at once and all come together to form one song. very cool. my explanation may not be so great so just go take a look. the second site she sent me is a tonematrix. it’s programmed with a wave pattern that you can alter by inputing numbers or clicking on various boxes. very cool.

 

Snakes and Toilets

the taipei times reports on a good reason why you should always look into the toilet before sitting down on it:

A Nantou County man had an unpleasant surprise on Friday when a snake bit him on the scrotum as he sat on the toilet.

“I felt an excruciating pain in my lower body, like someone had stabbed me with a knife, shortly after sitting on the toilet bowl … I stood up immediately and saw blood oozing from my crotch,” the 50-year-old man, surnamed Lin (林), told reporters yesterday.

When he turned around and looked into the toilet, he saw a large snake in it, Lin said.

“I thought it might have been a poisonous snake. To prevent it from hurting anyone else I tried to flush the toilet several times but the snake would not go down the drain,” Lin said.

Failing to flush the snake, Lin shut the lid of the toilet and went to the hospital.

 

Rediscovering The Cinema

a few weeks ago peter and i went to the second run theater here to see milk. we both really liked the film of course. i had some concern as when we sat down there was a man sitting behind us talking loudly on his cell phone. luckily, once the lights went dark he stopped talking. it helped that the volume was a bit on the high side, but i didn’t hear anyone talking during the film and i don’t think that was just the volume.

the theater we went to is kind of famous since it’s the theater ang lee grew up going to. it’s one of the few theaters in taiwan still doing hand painted signs/illustrations for movies playing. an odd thing about going to this theater is it has rekindled my love of going to the movies. not just the seeing of the movies, but the joy of sitting in a theater and watching a film. i think this largely has to do with the fact that the theater is old and as a result has a character often lacking from newer theaters. the newer theaters may have better sound and newer seats but also are usually on the sterile side. they aren’t a place i want to hang out in, but older theaters have some sort of charm. maybe i’m bored with the desire for perfection and just prefer to see the cracks showing. slightly off sound, scratched film, they all have a certain something that appeals to me in the way the latest state of the art theater doesn’t.

now if the theater started showing wacky midnight movies i’d be more than overjoyed, but that sort of tradition sadly doesn’t really exist in taiwan.

 

Renaldo And The Loaf

a nice blast from the past. renaldo and the loaf doing songs for swinging larvae:

interestingly, the video and music still seem cutting edge even some 20 years on. i guess that can also be read as showing how lame much of the music/video created today is.

as an added bonus here’s a documentary/interview on/with the band:

i love how he talks about using real words to create a sort of new language.

 

Luermen Activities

today peter and i went out to the big luermen temple here. i’d been out by it earlier in the week and it looked like there were some events that might be going on. well, there were.what they were about i’m unsure. but i shot some very bad cell phone video of a bit of it:

you can see more here and here.

 

Violence and Cover Up In a Taiwanese Junior High

i’m not sure if this story is getting much coverage by the taiwanese media, but considering the state of the media in taiwan i’m not surprised if it isn’t. that link is in chinese, but the important thing is the video.

apparently, a junior high school boy(who may be slightly retarded) had gone to look for someone in another classroom. at some point i guess he shoved a girl. the girl got upset and got a group of boys to beat the kid up. she filmed it all(i guess she was quite happy with the result since she supposedly posted it to the internet originally). after several kids had beaten on him they made him apologize. that would make this story bad enough, but there’s more.

i’m told the principal then tried to cover it up. in taiwan parents pay tuition for their kids to go to school and there is heavy competition between schools to attract pupils/money(usually with claims about how high their students score on entrance examinations for better high schools or universities) so any bad press about the school would hurt it in number of students or financially.

the parents tried to pay off the boy or his family(with a measly 20,000 nt(about 600 usd)). i’m not sure if they accepted the money or not. but the parents were still afraid of a scandal so they tried to find a politician to cover up the story. i have no idea what came of that attempt. i sincerely hope it doesn’t work and that they are punished severely.