-NALEN+

L. introduced me to a softer world ...so here is take 1 from j.

Labels: confusion, drunkenness, experimental art ? haha not really, j.

posted by Artfoal @ 3:08 AM 0 Comments

LOVE CARTIER, since i love you and you love me, does that mean I get a diamond ring?

What a clever campaign: "How far would you go for love?" Translation: You better work harder boys, we just raised your woman's expectations by twofold + tickets to Europe. I can hear the ad executive's chuckling crescendoing into cackling from here...
Seriously though, from a design perspective LOVE Cartier really did a gorgeous job. Though the short love films seem a bit over-the-top in dubbedlish, if you just listen to the Frawwnch and watch- the beauty comes out. It's confusingly natural, the extra silence in the films. But oh le monde...ze best parrrrrrt ? Ze MUZEEQ! Sometimes it takes just a song to help you love the world again. And I'm hoping that my uploading effort is uplifting, whether you are a little down today, a little up... wow I need to stop. Music deserves a gang sign...

Labels: Archie, Comics, Dan Black, fennesz+sakamoto, Grand National, Hawksley Workman, j., Little Dragon, Lou Reed, LOVE Cartier, music, Pauline Croze, Phoenix, sol seppy, Thomas Dybdahl, 方大同

posted by Artfoal @ 12:15 AM 0 Comments

Rien ne se passe jamais comme on l'imagine

Truthfully, my school isn't so bad when it's not completely kicking my ass. The only problem is that most of the time that's exactly what it's doing.

So, to counter the gravitas of my last post- cameraphone pictures from the East Coast:


my campus in the wintertime, when the snow isn't too icy or dirty, and it isn't so cold that I wish I could remove my bones so they would stop aching


we're known for crack and crabs (literally, crabs)


how nerds say hi to each other


Tapas Teatro... I love white chocolate


Inner Harbor


So at research, my postdoc performs fatal cardiac punctures on the mice before it's my turn to eviscerate them, hearts still beating. Kinda cool? Kinda sad? Mostly cool, except when they piss themselves out of fear, but by the time I get to them they're almost dead anyway.


ahi tuna at Ruths Chris, which is some of the best I've ever had


pretty much sums it up


The Charleston (French & southern fusion), where my friend and I spent $100+ each on dinner


view from my old dorm


And one from California!


amazing rolls at Ninkimono Sushi... plus j.'s boobs

:)

Labels: ♡L, East Coast, pictures, school

posted by ♡ @ 10:39 PM 1 Comments

ah...

"The intelligent run from it because they fear of losing, tarnishing, or destroying it, the stupid approach it and take it all for granted, and those in the middle are the lucky few who actually make it all happen, this phenomenon called love.”

-- Unknown (by me, at least.)

Labels: j., love

posted by Artfoal @ 12:18 AM 1 Comments

the good & the good

Labels: hip-hop, j., Living Legends, music, Never Falling Down, Remember Who You Are

posted by Artfoal @ 11:42 PM 0 Comments

梦里梦到醒不来的梦

I am someone who gets creeped out very easily. I don't believe in ghosts, but ghost movies petrify me. Running solely accompanied by your breath and something more sinister from people popping out of closets, hanging from ceiling fans gives me nightmares for weeks.

Back in my old house, I used to rip out articles, comics, and pictures that I liked from my favorite magazines. Literally every wall of my room was covered, including the ceiling (pictures on aphasia, under "room"), with faces of beautiful people, beautiful stories, lessons and quotes. Enormous photographs from W, Richard Brautigan's "Love Poem" ripped out from i-D, articles from Newsweek, an editorial from the first edition of Vogue China.

I worked on those walls for years. Eventually I had to decide if things were meaningful enough to put up, if it was poignant enough to merit covering something else that I had previously found striking. My friend told me it all reminded her of something out of A Beautiful Mind, and wondered that all those eyes didn't frighten me at night. Upon reflection, I could see that it might be creepy, but it never unnerved me. Every inch meant something to me. One of my favorite articles was the speech Steve Jobs gave at the 2005 Stanford commencement. (Can you spot it in the photographs?)

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. ...

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.

His speech appeals to the romantic in me, but I am not all romantic.

When my parents sold the house, the realtor told me to take down the papering because he said it would "frighten off" prospective customers. "It makes your room smaller," he smiled, which was untrue as the omnipresent cluster of faces, if anything, gave a sense of a lack of dimension. My parents threw most of it away, but what could I have done- taken them apart and reassembled them, these pieces that I chose for the way they looked next to each other, the way they fit into each other? My room now is bare. Usually I am at home maybe two months out of the year, and even though I'm home this summer, I haven't even bothered unpacking. I picked the coloring of my new room- light mint green with cherry red hardwood flooring. It matches, it's simpler and less haphazard, but still, I miss the sense of meaning all around me.

Back to Steve Job's speech. How does it match up versus something like this, that I can't say is right or wrong in comparison?

In [art, music, etc.], the few top get tons of money while the rest get nearly squat. And what's more, if you're at the top, yeah you've got your life made. You're doing what you love and you're earning big bucks.

But guess what? If you're doing what you love, but you're earning barely enough to pay your next apartment rent fee, and don't have enough to sustain a family and eat out every now and then (and not even own a new car), you can't say that you'd still be "Oh so happy to be doing what I love". In fact, I've seen tons of those people just wish and regret that they became doctors/lawyers/businessmen, etc.

There's a fine line between reality and fantasy. But cross it, and you're screwed, and time doesn't turn back. ... How many people in the world have jobs that they love? A crippling, minor percent of the entire 100.

The reality is, jobs end up serving as just a means of earning money so that the worker can do the things he wants to: this is how it ends up for most people. ... If you have a passion for becoming a Tolkeinist, and end up becoming someone who studies a made up language all your life and love it to death, but earn just as much as the guy flipping burgers at McDonald's, your daddy won't talk to you because you won't have a phone that you could buy.

That's reality.

(5000 points if you know where this is from.)

I've been thinking a lot about love and what it really means. I know that it counts for something, but I'm not sure how much. I am not particularly idealistic by nature and I question things over and over again, every day. If I love California, does it mean I should stay? If I don't love my career, does it mean I should change it? And if I love someone, be it romantic, platonic, or familial- does that mean I should be with that person? That love is the only justification needed?

I don't think so, but I don't know how much it counts for.

Labels: ♡L, 2005, California, career, collages, commencement speech, cynicism, death, decorations, dreams, idealism, life, love, moving, real estate, realism, reality, rooms, Stanford, Steve Jobs

posted by ♡ @ 8:22 PM 0 Comments