things I learned in february

What a weird month this has been. I've been kind of manic lately but things are cooling down in my brain. My desperate hatred for winter (also called SAD) has dissipated and I am beginning to plan for spring in my head. I don't know what that means, but I will be ready when the time comes.

For some reason I've also had a lot of crazy ideas over the last month- good ideas.

• My first idea is to learn how to bake from scratch. Although Erin rarely bakes, she really loves baked goods, so I figured this would be a good way to balance out our kitchen powers and give my lovely wife all the cookies she desiresdeserves. So on Sunday with a bit of help I created some peanut butter cookies, straight out of The Joy of Cooking:
  



• The second idea is that I want to ride my bike as soon as it is thawed. This isn't exactly a new concept, but I'm definitely pretty motivated right now. Erin got a promotion, too, so she's working longer hours. Having one car means it's a pain for the both of us to commute, so using the bicycle will be much simpler.



• I guess idea three would be to get a macbook pro, finish "decorating" the basement, and set up my instruments and recording equipment so I can start fooling around with some new music. I'm not sure when this will happen, given our financial situation, but I've thought about it a lot and it's something I will really enjoy once it is complete.



• This Sunday I'm moving up to blueberry muffins!



• I'm taking a road trip in June with some friends to Bonnaroo Music Festival, in Tennessee. Let me know if you want to go, we haven't arranged transport yet and may have room.



• I have also recently found an enjoyment of techno music.



• Beauty is a profound thing.

Rubaiyat

From a poem entitled Rubaiyat by Mahmoud Darwish:

10.

I see what I want of death: I love, and my chest splits
for a horse of Eros that leaps out of it white, running over clouds
and flying on endless vapor, circling the eternal blue ...
So do not stop me from dying, do not bring me back to a star of dust


11.

I see what I want of blood: I have seen the murdered
address the murderer who bullet-lit his heart: From now on
you shall remember only me. I, too, murdered you idly, and from now on
you shall remember only me ... you won't bear the roses of spring

photography as personal narrative

excerpt from an interview of Nobuyoshi Araki (via American Suburb X):

Time is never specified in your photos. What is your relationship to time?

NA: A photograph takes place only at a certain instant. And this instant is unidentifiable. The instant is the eternal and the eternal is the instant. When the camera shutter is released, that's the eternal. Eternity is achieved by releasing the camera shutter and letting it descend. The action has an immediate connection. It's more an action than an art. I think it is fine to mix photos, regardless of when they were taken. On the other hand, I take photographs with printed dates so that they can be shown in chronological order. The flow of daily occurrence is a story. It is extremely dramatic and interesting. There are various meanings. But it would be, if anything, more interesting to show them in chronological order.

This is why I take photographs as an intimate diary, and always say that they can be left as they were taken without trying to edit them. Editing is done automatically by the life and era we live in. Which means the moment the photos are placed in the order they were taken, God or whoever else - in my case Shasin, the god of photography - will make it work for me. It would be most dramatic if they were placed in the order they were taken unconsciously. That's how most of my photography books are made. I do not need to think of order. For example, if I wish to have a photo of Chiro here or there, I don't need to think. This image appears quite naturally.

Why do you sometimes put dates on photos?

NA: It is making fun of the fact that I hate completion and completion is no good. If a date is printed on a photo, it can never be sold as a masterpiece. It means these photos are merely what happened on a certain day. That is what counts!

Photography is simply about a day, an instant that is extremely wonderful. Nothing could be greater than an intimate journal. Even in literature, the journal stands on a higher level than a novel. The journal represents life, and the date's photography. Or then, it could be up to the photographer to erase the date. Photography is life!

Is that why you've never stopped taking pictures?

NA: As with life itself, one must continue taking photographs continuously. Just as one continues living, for me taking photographs is living.

Take a roll of film, shoot with it, wind it up but not all the way, send it to your friend to shoot with. Double exposures, one from each person!

Anyone game?

little diana

welcome to the family diana mini!



35mm film, half-frame (meaning two vertical exposures in the space that one frame would usually take) or square-frame (centered in the 35mm frame), and really lo-fi. first shots coming soon!

i will be twitter-spammed for talking about social media marketing

but here is my take on it anyway.

If you want to sell stuff to me via social networks:

1. Your product has to be something relevant to me socially, or be something I enjoy using. Example: beer, I enjoy using; wrenches I do not. *but* if I am a mechanic and have lots of mechanic friends, I might want to see content about your wrenches so I can share it with them.

2. Your product has to be something I use frequently. As much as I love my car I already have one and I don't need information about lease financing offers. I will seek that out when I need it. Same goes for airfare deals- Southwest, I'm looking at you here.

3. Your message has to be interesting or useful. Communicate about new products or deals, or interesting news about your products. Don't just post advertisements. Don't post the same information twice. Do post regularly and reliably, otherwise you appear unenthusiastic about your product.

4. You need to be a person. People don't communicate by press releases, so be personable and even use your real name if you are posting on behalf of a company. Respond to people who ask you questions.

All this said, there have only been a handful of companies that I follow that I have purchased products from because of their social media marketing. It's hard to do right and as I've indicated you have to have an appropriate product to begin with.


Edit:
5. Do not use txt-spk. Please. It hurts my brain:

@meijer: Hello Savvy Savers. $104 worth of #savings & #deals w/ MealBox #coupons this wk. Could B a wrld rcrd! http://bit.ly/Y6zDN ^BV

awesome.