Something That Is Weird

Here is something that is weird: faxes. How are they sent? How are they received? How does this all happen? How can someone send and/or receive a fax nonchalantly without sitting down to wonder about this? I have done this myself but I don't remember how. I once worked as a receptionist and in between reading novels and looking at the internet (which is another very weird thing) I would send and receive faxes. And I did it nonchalantly, without wondering how. When I was a kid, I thought the way faxes were sent was like this: the paper would roll itself up very tightly and then fly through the fax machine's cord, right into the electrical outlet. And inside the electrical outlet were a bunch of other cords, linking to other electrical outlets which connected to other fax machines. And in this way, all fax machines were connected. But now I know it is not like this, although I wish it were because a) I wouldn't spend so much time wondering about faxes, and b) I would know that we were all connected and this would make me feel less lonely sometimes.


art credit: Shannon Rankin, whose art freezes up my limbs for a little bit -- you can find her on flickr and etsy.

HEY,

(Andreas Banderas)

holding the keys to the world

Check out:

-This cool United States and selected Canadian provinces map with state/province postcards that Urban Outfitters made. Pretty awesome. My faves are South Dakota, Virginia, and Maine. Okay, Georgia's pretty great too. I find U.O. so intimidating that it's better just to admire from afar (like, the internet far).

-The new album by Girl Talk called Feed The Animals. Do you like music? Cool, i think you might like this.

-These !!! animal silhouette bookshelf dividers. How cool are these? Separate your fiction from your non-fiction from your Archie comics from your LSAT prep books. And by "separate," i mean just think about it and dream about it because the website isn't even in English and these cost 1,575 of something that might be yen.

Oh, p.s.

And just in case you ever felt that your future was a mystery; or that you were tired and energized, hungry and full, disappointed with yourself and at the same time productive, all conflict and at the same moment in complete peace, a living breathing dichotomy; or that all the sounds, scents, and tastes connected to your memories had disappeared -- here.

Photo credit: Jean Jullien. Check out his reflet installation for some really great stuff.

the Israeli sun soaked my skin

Okay, my long, put-off, slightly avoided Israel post. It's not really what you think it'll be. I wanted to show you guys something really cool that caught my attention in Israel: the graffiti/street art. Maybe it's nothing special and you can easily find the same sort of stuff in Toronto, but the fact that some of it is in Hebrew makes it a sort of mystery. Plus, it's foreign. I think it's pretty awesome. Some of this will be my own translation (with help) so perhaps not 100% accurate.

Graffiti/Writing

"Today i understand why i cried when i was born."

fight the power

KNOW HOPE
(BROKEN HEARTS RECOLLECT
THEMSELVES WHILE DISTRACTED)

daughter of Israel, please dress modestly

Street Art

at the playground

a mural for Victory ice cream

A whale in the middle of the street in Tel Aviv!

What sparked this entire post is Israel's electrical box art. All electrical boxes are painted by artists in whatever way they'd like. Some of them are weird, some incredibly cool, and some mediocre. Each street is like a little art gallery. The following are all from Ashkelon.

Some Disney-themed ones near the playground:

My favourite favourite favourite: a stereo! Beautiful!

A differently-coloured lion sculpture just on the street!

I don't know if this really counts as street art, but even the fire hydrants in Israel look like pieces of art. Little aliens.

Mondays > Sundays

This is one of the most spectacular things i've ever heard of. (via Said the Gramophone)

&&& on a somewhat unrelated note,
"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."
- Mahatma Gandhi

Overheard at the Wailing Wall

Daughter: Daddy, why do the boys have so much more room on their side than the girls?

Dad: I don't know.

Daughter: My teacher says it's just a trick, that they actually have the same amount of room.

Dad: No, it's not a trick.

Daughter: Well, it's not fair, daddy. They should have the same amount of room.

Dad: No, it's not fair. It's not fair at all.

June 4th, 2008

Shalom m'Israel, havarim!

I do have an Israel-related post to make, but i'll save it for a bit later. For now let me tell you of some other exciting things.

There is a band called Sigur Rós and they are Icelandic and also pretty beautiful (because the two are not mutually exclusive). For example (and you tell me if this isn't pretty beautiful), their 2002 album ( ) is sung entirely in Hopelandic, a made-up language that sounds phonetically like Icelandic. All the lyrics are nonsense and you, as a listener, have that difficult task of taking all the nonsense and making your own sense of what is being not said but felt. Am i making any sense? It's hard figuring out how to feel, you know?

Anyway, their new album Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust (English: "With a Buzz in our Ears We Play Endlessly") will be released soon (June 23rd) and things are looking pretty beautiful. Everything about this next album just seems so youthful and exciting and naked. Here is their pretty beautiful album cover:
They released their first single recently (with an accompanying video) and it's pretty beautiful as well. The song is called "Gobbledigook" (fittingly). Is the video porn? I don't really know... maybe. I will say that it's pretty beautiful, it makes me want to join a nudist hippie colony, and you should watch it and feel alive. However, do not watch it if you're at work, if your parents are in the room, or if you're reading this with friends who have previously accused you of being a skeevy perv (yeah, i'm looking at you, Debbie!) unless of course you are a rebel. Boy, that was a build-up. Okay, now go here and watch it.

If you are liking, please watch their music video for "Untitled #1 (Vaka)" because it's also pretty beautiful (in a different way) and it won Best Video at the MTV Europe Music Awards in 2003.


Secondly, i want to tell you about another band's awesome music video. The band is MGMT and the song is "Time to Pretend," which is an amazing song on its own and then the video comes along and blows it so far out of the water that it's moving around in space near Jupiter and moons. I mean, it's pretty fucked up in the most beautiful way. Warning: do not watch if you are prone to epileptic seizures.

Immukization made a mash-up of MGMT's "Time to Pretend" and Daft Punk's "One More Time" called "One More Time to Pretend." Listen, fall in love, and cross your fingers that Alfie's plays this come September.
Immukization - One More Time to Pretend (Daft Punk vs. MGMT) [mp3]

Credit goes to Stereogum for everything (in this post, not in my life).