art, politics, religion: discuss
Graphic of rotting bananas over beautiful ripe bananas reads, “When you want to eat a banana” and “When you don’t want to eat a banana.”
Back in Bali, we were talking to an Australian couple about this very fact.
The other universal truth is, fruit in a bowl goes largely untouched. But if you take that fruit, cut it up and lay it out, it’ll be gone before you can count to banana.
#quietcompany @quietcompanytx @hemantmehta
Sweet, cherry pie!
The Humanist magazine featured an article about Quiet Company and their new album, “We Are All Where We Belong.”
I was surprised that so many of my blogger colleagues ignored this story, but extremely appreciative that Taylor Muse and the rest of the band are getting this level of publicity.
If this is the first time you’re hearing about the album, the Humanist describes the album this way:
On We Are All Where We Belong, Quiet Company integrates a sound reminiscent of both Sufjan Stevens’ album Illinois and The National’s Boxer with the overarching narrative of lead vocalist Taylor Muse’s journey from a conservative Christian upbringing and belief system to a celebration of the power of human potential.
In the article, Taylor talks about his influences ranging from Kurt Vonnegut to Bart Ehrman. There’s this one section that I thought was great talking about topics within the songs:
Love is another thing we sing about a lot. We tend to be pretty romantic, and I write a lot of songs for my wife. But you know, I think the best love stories are often set against the specter of death. And again, it’s humanistic—the sense that this world is all we have, this time is all we have together, so let’s make the most of it. Let’s make our lives worth living as much as possible.
Go check out the article here. Here is my original write up from a few months ago.
And if you missed the most recent video release, here it is again (below).
Thanks, Steve P. for the headsup!
Two images stuck together. One is of a chubby boy sitting in the large part of a shopping cart at what appears to be Costco. He’s facing a TV. Below that is an Asian family with two boys sitting in the large area of the shopping cart, only they’re reading books.
A week from today, Tina and I fly off to sometimes sunny Maryland, where we’ll be shooting regular-reader Luis V.’s lovely wedding to his lovely fiancée Becky.
We couldn’t be more excited, and I have been going through pictures of the couple (Imma stalker) as well as Luis’ scouted locations that he posted on his Facebook for me, developing our shotlist and brainstorming ideas.
Our job is to make the permanent memories out of the whirlwind called marriage.
If I were superstitious, I would predict a rainy day next week, so that the opposite would come true.
But I’m not superstitious. This sunshine dance you see me doing behind my apartment around a campfire is to strengthen my glutes and ameliorate my cardio, all whilst getting rid of some of this excess brush from the trees.
What did you think it was for?
This video of biologist Richard Dawkins and theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss discussing the topic of “Something from Nothing” was published while I was out of town.
I’ve been meaning to post it, but haven’t personally had the time to watch it. I’ve got it running in the background today as I’m photo editing.
If I were someone who doubted evolution and physics regarding this topic, I would hope I would watch something like this. The issue is that (especially) Dawkins is demonized and hated by believers. So if you were a believer watching this video, you might find yourself grinding your teeth while watching.
If that’s the case, I hope you can get past that.
I put “pompous” in the header, because (1) I’m snarky and (2) that’s the way it can be construed. However, it’s well worth a watch (or listen).
I find believers who accept evolution admirable. But the great majority of believers — especially in America — don’t accept evolution or the Big Bang. But I have hope.
Whether you accept it or not, I hope you give this video a whirl.
This is the seventh episode of what YouTuber MrBigfun calls the Crazy Christian series.
At the beginning of the clip, Murdock says that if you have lots of credit card debt, the way to get out of that debt is to donate a $1000 more on the card to Murdock’s dock, I mean ministry, I mean, greed. I mean, fourth house fund. I mean, hooker budget.
In the video, Murdock has such award-winning, solid gold lines as:
“I ain’t seen a woman as beautiful as a hundred dollar bill.”
And
“I think I could handle the fire [of hell], but I just couldn’t stand all the fools. That makes you want to go to heaven, don’t it?”
And
“I said to the LORD, but I already have a debt free house. And he said to me, ‘But you’re only going to want One house. You’re getting old. Old people want more than one home.'”
And what’s up with all the YouTube videos going out of sync these days?
Bristol Palin is getting her own reality show.
Entertainment Weekly writes:
Lifetime has ordered 10 episodes of Bristol Palin: Life’s a Tripp, a half-hour docuseries that will “provide an exclusive, rare glimpse into Bristol Palin’s real life as a young, single mother forging her own way in the world while living under the constant spotlight as a member of one of America’s most high-profile families.”
“From the first moment she was thrust into the public eye, Bristol and her son have been the subjects of a huge amount of curiosity and misunderstanding,” said Rob Sharenow, executive vice president, Programming of Lifetime Networks, in a statement. “This show will reveal the real Bristol Palin and her journey as a daughter, a mother and a young woman making her way in the world.”
And she deserves it, you know. I mean, how else does an otherwise boring, single mom pay the mortgage and car payments without her famous mother paving the way toward reality-show stardom?
This is the American dream?
Bristol Palin is the posterchild for much of what I find wrong with America. You might play baseball. You might play basketball or football. Or you might become a on-screen star of some kind.
But what makes those people deserve the bloated checks they receive from these “talents”?
It wouldn’t be so bad if the discrepancy between idiots like this and us regular idiots wasn’t so vast.
But it is.
And that makes me angry.
You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.
I turn green. And I growl.
Envy’s green, right?
Yeah, I turn green.
Here’s a slideshow of shots I took of kids while in Bali.
I was able to get quite a few, and some of the shots are two frames of the same kid that I took zoomed in or out.
I could be wrong, or paranoid, but I felt that when I squatted down to take photos of kids, nearby adults would callout a warning for them to disband or walk away from me. It wasn’t callouts of panic. It was gentle words and the kids simply slammed the brakes on the cute.
For a few moments after squatting down, kids would attract toward me. But then suddenly, and unexpectedly, they would move quickly away.
I made up stories in my mind as to why. One thought was they didn’t want photographers “profiting” from their kids without giving something in return. “Stealing their souls,” I thought.
Or maybe they were seriously finished with their games.
This is going to sound all, “Did you know how poor kids are in third world countries,” but one group of kids — that I didn’t get one decent shot of — was playing with a wad of tape. I kid you not. They were having a blast. It looked to be a mix between dodgeball and catch.
One other interesting bit is about the girl with her arm in a sling. I stopped my driver to take a photo, and I wandered onto someone’s yard (where the little puppy barked at me from Wednesdog). The girl with the sling showed up and I took her picture.
In the car, our driver told me some poor kids are made of glass. Which I took to mean that kids with inferior diets have brittle bones.
Before I left the little girl, I gave her a bunch of rupiahs, not knowing my driver would tell me that.
It made me feel a little less guilty for what may have been construed as trespassing.
Le Café Wittypoots 