Looters destroy mummies in Egyptian Museum
January 29 2011 at 10:05pm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AFP
Smoke billows from a building adjacent to the Egyptian museum in the central Tahrir square in Cairo as thousands of anti-regime demonstrators continue to pour onto Cairo's streets, demanding President Hosni Mubarak stand down the day after the veteran leader ordered the army to tackle the deadly protests.
Cairo - Looters broke into the Egyptian Museum during anti-government protests late on Friday and destroyed two Pharaonic mummies, Egypt's top archaeologist told state television.
The museum in central Cairo, which has the world's biggest collection of Pharaonic antiquities, is adjacent to the headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party that protesters had earlier set ablaze. Flames were seen still pouring out of the party headquarters early on Saturday.
“I felt deeply sorry today when I came this morning to the Egyptian Museum and found that some had tried to raid the museum by force last night,” Zahi Hawass, chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said on Saturday.
“Egyptian citizens tried to prevent them and were joined by the tourism police, but some (looters) managed to enter from above and they destroyed two of the mummies,” he said.
He added looters had also ransacked the ticket office.
The two-storey museum, built in 1902, houses tens of thousands of objects in its galleries and storerooms, including most of the King Tutankhamen collection. - Reuters
Monday, January 31, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
thank you Boris
“I am prepared to go anywhere, provided it be forward.”
“Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, ‘I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.’”
— Lisa St. Aubin de Terán
“Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, ‘I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.’”
— Lisa St. Aubin de Terán
Friday, January 28, 2011
long live the Prince
My audience with Prince has taken a bizarre downward turn.
I'm trying to interview the rock legend but he's more interested in an impromptu jam session on the stage of his private concert hall - with me on drums.
We're two minutes into Beatles classic Come Together and I'm getting into my stride when I become aware that Prince is staring across at me and wincing.
"Stop! Stop! Stop!" he shouts, slamming his hand down on his purple grand piano. "Have you ever seen The Apprentice on TV? Cos You're fired!"
I protest. Let's take it from the top again, I suggest. But too late. I've blown it.
Still, there can't be many people who've been hired and fired by Prince, all in the space of a few minutes.
My humiliation came at the end of an extraordinary day in which I was given a rare insight into the very private world of one of the greatest rock stars on the planet. A living legend who has sold more than 100 million albums over 30 years.
Prince agreed to his first British newspaper interview for 10 years before his eagerly anticipated new album 20TEN which, in the biggest music giveaway of the year, will be released free in the UK only in the Daily Mirror this Saturday.
The interview almost doesn't happen. Then it's on as long as I can meet him the very next day at his home town of Minneapolis in the US Midwest (and I'm ordered not to bring a camera, mobile phone or tape recorder).
After a transatlantic dash I arrive at the hotel to find Shelby Johnson, one of Prince's backing singers, waiting to drive me down the road to his Paisley Park base - a name that's as synonymous with Prince as Neverland was with Michael Jackson.
I'd envisaged a lavish purple palace at the end of a winding lane, but it turns out to be a huge white 70,000 square foot building, more like an industrial complex, on a busy main road.
Shelby shows me into a room like a 50s diner and, before I have had chance to sit down, Prince strides in, beaming, with hand outstretched.
I'm amazed. Where is the superstar entourage - burly security, manic PRs and personal assistants?
"Hi," he says, "I'm so glad you could come." His voice is deeper than I expected, he's certainly small (5ft 2in at most), looks almost half his age (52), and is dressed immaculately, if oddly, in white silk trousers, flouncy green silk shirt, an ivory tunic and white pumps (which, I suspect, are stacked).
"You must come and listen to the album," he says. "I hope you like it. It's great that it will be free to readers of your newspaper. I really believe in finding new ways to distribute my music."
He explains that he decided the album will be released in CD format only in the Mirror. There'll be no downloads anywhere in the world because of his ongoing battles against internet abuses.
Unlike most other rock stars, he has banned YouTube and iTunes from using any of his music and has even closed down his own official website.
He says: "The internet's completely over. I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won't pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can't get it.
"The internet's like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good.
"They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you."
Then he leads me to his recording studio and urges me to sit in his leather swivel chair at the enormous mixing desk. Wow! I've finally arrived at the epicentre of Prince's world - the scene of fabled all-night-long sessions in which he apparently plays up to 27 instruments.
This is where the genius behind classics such as Purple Rain, When Doves Cry, 1999 and Let's Go Crazy creates his music. The walls are a vibrant reddish purple, flickering candles line every ledge and the smell of incense fills the air.
Prince jabs a few buttons and hidden speakers burst into life with my preview. He looks at me searching for a reaction. All fears that it might be uninspiring vanish as my foot starts tapping.
It's instantly infectious. Amazing. Thankfully it's a return to his early blistering form which captivated millions of fans around the world and I love it.
"This one's called Compassion," says Prince. But as I try to scribble it down he looks aghast, grabs my wrist and pleads: "Please, please. It's a surprise, don't spoil it for people."
So why did you decide to call the album 20TEN? I ask. "I just think it's a year that really matters," he says. These are very trying times." To emphasise the point he chivvies me into another room, switches on the TV and shows me clips from an evangelical TV documentary blaming corporate America for a range of woes from Hurricane Katrina to asthmatic children.
He says one problem is that "people, especially young people, don't have enough God in their lives".
Prince has been a devout Jehovah's Witness for more than 10 years.
He even has a space set aside which he's labelled The Knowledge Room, with a library of religious books.
Prince talks about his beliefs with missionary zeal, but ask him anything remotely personal and he's brusque. Question him on his childhood and he says: "I don't talk about the past."
Advertisement - article continues below »
Jacksonville: Job Scams (EXPOSED)
We investigated work at home jobs and what we found may shock… Read On... Jacksonville: Job Scams (EXPOSED)
We investigated work at home jobs and what we found may shock you... Read On... Jacksonville Alert: Todays Deal of The Day is!AdsOn his relationship with his stunning girlfriend Bria Valente, he says: "Self interest is on the back-burner now."
And on late friend/foe Michael Jackson, he simply replies: "Next question."
Time for another surprise. "Come," he says, and like an excitable Willy Wonka, he leads me down corridors lined with glinting platinum discs to a lounge where his three talented backing singers, Shelby Johnson, Olivia Warfield and Elisa Fiorilla, are waiting by an ebony futuristic grand piano.
Prince shows me to a seat in the middle of the room and starts playing a rousing track Act of God from the new album 20TEN... especially for me.
Surreal isn't the word. I thank them profusely, Prince smiles and sends me off for dinner. But as it's "only" 10pm he suggests we regroup back here in an hour "to party".
As he's gained a reputation as the Prince of Darkness for not starting gigs until 2am and not leaving clubs until dawn, my expectations run high. When I return later to Prince's weird HQ, he welcomes me warmly into what appears to be his own private nightclub.
It's lavishly kitted out with velvet circular sofas, a dancefloor and there's a stairway up to a balcony.
On two huge screens, at least 20ft high, there are videos of him performing.
But where are the guests? And where's the bar? Of course, I remember, he's a strict teetotal vegan - when one of those backing singers wanders in, offering me a glass of still water.
She is closely followed by the other two, carrying trays of sliced melon and raw vegetables, which they place on a long table beside a large Bible. "Help yourself," says one.
Prince walks in with girlfriend Bria, in a shimmering full-length evening gown like she's at the Oscars. Twice married and divorced, he has been with the singer, who's almost half his age, for three years.
He produced her first solo album Elixer last year and she has become a Jehovah's Witness. He introduces her and she looks around and says: "Sorry, I think I'm a little overdressed!"
They pop out for a minute and return, with her proudly holding a food blender filled with a banana smoothie which they pour into glasses for themselves.
Just when it couldn't get any more bizarre, Prince clambers behind video equipment under the stairs and starts screening 1970s clips from the US TV show Soul Train of his music heroes such as Marvin Gaye and Barry White.
He urges his guests - all five of us - to dance and the spirited backing singers look like they're having the time of their lives.
Prince occasionally emerges from under the stairs to study the screens a bit closer. But when I try to talk to him he runs back to his hole, shouting: "Too many questions."
From his agility, it's clear rumours he needs a double hip op after too much dancing on high heels are unfounded. But he bores quickly of the videos and we're off again, down more corridors of platinum discs, past iconic guitars and that famous bike from Purple Rain.
He's decided to take us to his private concert hall, which, with a capacity for more than 1,000 people, is awesome.
Pride of place is a huge Love Symbol #2 - now the name of the symbol he changed his name to when he fell out with his old record company Warners.
He says: "It's what I always dreamed of when I was a young musician, playing in the basement. Music is my life. It's my trade. If I can't get it out of my head I can't function. Someone told me they saw me at my peak, but how do they know when my peak is? I think I'm improving all the time. When I listen to my old records I'm ashamed of how I played then."
He adds earnestly: "Playing electric guitar your whole life does something to you. I'm convinced all that electricity racing through my body made me keep my hair."
Then he orders us all on the stage, saying: "Get yourself an instrument." Prince sits at his purple piano, the backing singers by their microphones and me on the drums. Only to be found out.
It's only midnight but after firing me Prince clearly decides he can take no more. As he bids me farewell, I cheekily pull out a camera and ask for a picture.
He shakes his head. "It's much better in the memory bank," says the star. Then he turns to a backing singer and says: "The picture will make your eyes look red and they will use it really big."
Prince doesn't need an army of PRs to advise him on his image. For all the time I spent with him he still managed to retain that air of mystery.
Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2010/07/05/prince-world-exclusive-interview-peter-willis-goes-inside-the-star-s-secret-world-115875-22382552/#ixzz1CMrkQkau
Get your free copy of the new Prince album 20TEN exclusive with the Daily Mirror on Saturday 10 July Free Prince 20TEN
I'm trying to interview the rock legend but he's more interested in an impromptu jam session on the stage of his private concert hall - with me on drums.
We're two minutes into Beatles classic Come Together and I'm getting into my stride when I become aware that Prince is staring across at me and wincing.
"Stop! Stop! Stop!" he shouts, slamming his hand down on his purple grand piano. "Have you ever seen The Apprentice on TV? Cos You're fired!"
I protest. Let's take it from the top again, I suggest. But too late. I've blown it.
Still, there can't be many people who've been hired and fired by Prince, all in the space of a few minutes.
My humiliation came at the end of an extraordinary day in which I was given a rare insight into the very private world of one of the greatest rock stars on the planet. A living legend who has sold more than 100 million albums over 30 years.
Prince agreed to his first British newspaper interview for 10 years before his eagerly anticipated new album 20TEN which, in the biggest music giveaway of the year, will be released free in the UK only in the Daily Mirror this Saturday.
The interview almost doesn't happen. Then it's on as long as I can meet him the very next day at his home town of Minneapolis in the US Midwest (and I'm ordered not to bring a camera, mobile phone or tape recorder).
After a transatlantic dash I arrive at the hotel to find Shelby Johnson, one of Prince's backing singers, waiting to drive me down the road to his Paisley Park base - a name that's as synonymous with Prince as Neverland was with Michael Jackson.
I'd envisaged a lavish purple palace at the end of a winding lane, but it turns out to be a huge white 70,000 square foot building, more like an industrial complex, on a busy main road.
Shelby shows me into a room like a 50s diner and, before I have had chance to sit down, Prince strides in, beaming, with hand outstretched.
I'm amazed. Where is the superstar entourage - burly security, manic PRs and personal assistants?
"Hi," he says, "I'm so glad you could come." His voice is deeper than I expected, he's certainly small (5ft 2in at most), looks almost half his age (52), and is dressed immaculately, if oddly, in white silk trousers, flouncy green silk shirt, an ivory tunic and white pumps (which, I suspect, are stacked).
"You must come and listen to the album," he says. "I hope you like it. It's great that it will be free to readers of your newspaper. I really believe in finding new ways to distribute my music."
He explains that he decided the album will be released in CD format only in the Mirror. There'll be no downloads anywhere in the world because of his ongoing battles against internet abuses.
Unlike most other rock stars, he has banned YouTube and iTunes from using any of his music and has even closed down his own official website.
He says: "The internet's completely over. I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won't pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can't get it.
"The internet's like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good.
"They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you."
Then he leads me to his recording studio and urges me to sit in his leather swivel chair at the enormous mixing desk. Wow! I've finally arrived at the epicentre of Prince's world - the scene of fabled all-night-long sessions in which he apparently plays up to 27 instruments.
This is where the genius behind classics such as Purple Rain, When Doves Cry, 1999 and Let's Go Crazy creates his music. The walls are a vibrant reddish purple, flickering candles line every ledge and the smell of incense fills the air.
Prince jabs a few buttons and hidden speakers burst into life with my preview. He looks at me searching for a reaction. All fears that it might be uninspiring vanish as my foot starts tapping.
It's instantly infectious. Amazing. Thankfully it's a return to his early blistering form which captivated millions of fans around the world and I love it.
"This one's called Compassion," says Prince. But as I try to scribble it down he looks aghast, grabs my wrist and pleads: "Please, please. It's a surprise, don't spoil it for people."
So why did you decide to call the album 20TEN? I ask. "I just think it's a year that really matters," he says. These are very trying times." To emphasise the point he chivvies me into another room, switches on the TV and shows me clips from an evangelical TV documentary blaming corporate America for a range of woes from Hurricane Katrina to asthmatic children.
He says one problem is that "people, especially young people, don't have enough God in their lives".
Prince has been a devout Jehovah's Witness for more than 10 years.
He even has a space set aside which he's labelled The Knowledge Room, with a library of religious books.
Prince talks about his beliefs with missionary zeal, but ask him anything remotely personal and he's brusque. Question him on his childhood and he says: "I don't talk about the past."
Advertisement - article continues below »
Jacksonville: Job Scams (EXPOSED)
We investigated work at home jobs and what we found may shock… Read On... Jacksonville: Job Scams (EXPOSED)
We investigated work at home jobs and what we found may shock you... Read On... Jacksonville Alert: Todays Deal of The Day is!AdsOn his relationship with his stunning girlfriend Bria Valente, he says: "Self interest is on the back-burner now."
And on late friend/foe Michael Jackson, he simply replies: "Next question."
Time for another surprise. "Come," he says, and like an excitable Willy Wonka, he leads me down corridors lined with glinting platinum discs to a lounge where his three talented backing singers, Shelby Johnson, Olivia Warfield and Elisa Fiorilla, are waiting by an ebony futuristic grand piano.
Prince shows me to a seat in the middle of the room and starts playing a rousing track Act of God from the new album 20TEN... especially for me.
Surreal isn't the word. I thank them profusely, Prince smiles and sends me off for dinner. But as it's "only" 10pm he suggests we regroup back here in an hour "to party".
As he's gained a reputation as the Prince of Darkness for not starting gigs until 2am and not leaving clubs until dawn, my expectations run high. When I return later to Prince's weird HQ, he welcomes me warmly into what appears to be his own private nightclub.
It's lavishly kitted out with velvet circular sofas, a dancefloor and there's a stairway up to a balcony.
On two huge screens, at least 20ft high, there are videos of him performing.
But where are the guests? And where's the bar? Of course, I remember, he's a strict teetotal vegan - when one of those backing singers wanders in, offering me a glass of still water.
She is closely followed by the other two, carrying trays of sliced melon and raw vegetables, which they place on a long table beside a large Bible. "Help yourself," says one.
Prince walks in with girlfriend Bria, in a shimmering full-length evening gown like she's at the Oscars. Twice married and divorced, he has been with the singer, who's almost half his age, for three years.
He produced her first solo album Elixer last year and she has become a Jehovah's Witness. He introduces her and she looks around and says: "Sorry, I think I'm a little overdressed!"
They pop out for a minute and return, with her proudly holding a food blender filled with a banana smoothie which they pour into glasses for themselves.
Just when it couldn't get any more bizarre, Prince clambers behind video equipment under the stairs and starts screening 1970s clips from the US TV show Soul Train of his music heroes such as Marvin Gaye and Barry White.
He urges his guests - all five of us - to dance and the spirited backing singers look like they're having the time of their lives.
Prince occasionally emerges from under the stairs to study the screens a bit closer. But when I try to talk to him he runs back to his hole, shouting: "Too many questions."
From his agility, it's clear rumours he needs a double hip op after too much dancing on high heels are unfounded. But he bores quickly of the videos and we're off again, down more corridors of platinum discs, past iconic guitars and that famous bike from Purple Rain.
He's decided to take us to his private concert hall, which, with a capacity for more than 1,000 people, is awesome.
Pride of place is a huge Love Symbol #2 - now the name of the symbol he changed his name to when he fell out with his old record company Warners.
He says: "It's what I always dreamed of when I was a young musician, playing in the basement. Music is my life. It's my trade. If I can't get it out of my head I can't function. Someone told me they saw me at my peak, but how do they know when my peak is? I think I'm improving all the time. When I listen to my old records I'm ashamed of how I played then."
He adds earnestly: "Playing electric guitar your whole life does something to you. I'm convinced all that electricity racing through my body made me keep my hair."
Then he orders us all on the stage, saying: "Get yourself an instrument." Prince sits at his purple piano, the backing singers by their microphones and me on the drums. Only to be found out.
It's only midnight but after firing me Prince clearly decides he can take no more. As he bids me farewell, I cheekily pull out a camera and ask for a picture.
He shakes his head. "It's much better in the memory bank," says the star. Then he turns to a backing singer and says: "The picture will make your eyes look red and they will use it really big."
Prince doesn't need an army of PRs to advise him on his image. For all the time I spent with him he still managed to retain that air of mystery.
Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2010/07/05/prince-world-exclusive-interview-peter-willis-goes-inside-the-star-s-secret-world-115875-22382552/#ixzz1CMrkQkau
Get your free copy of the new Prince album 20TEN exclusive with the Daily Mirror on Saturday 10 July Free Prince 20TEN
Thursday, January 27, 2011
these were anticipated
It wasn't ever supposed to hurt, Andrew. You weren't ever supposed to cry. And I never dreamed you'd sometimes feel so helpless.
Yet, as things have turned out, lots of folks have trouble getting out of bed on cold, dark mornings.
Anyhow, Andrew, should there also be the occasional pain, tear, or touch of sadness beyond that, please realize these were anticipated, bargained for, and even sought after. As each would illuminate your resiliency, prove your strength, and help you blast through every flimsy notion that would otherwise keep you from seeing that even now I hold you in the palm of my hand and that all things are possible.
Such a deal,
The Universe
Yet, as things have turned out, lots of folks have trouble getting out of bed on cold, dark mornings.
Anyhow, Andrew, should there also be the occasional pain, tear, or touch of sadness beyond that, please realize these were anticipated, bargained for, and even sought after. As each would illuminate your resiliency, prove your strength, and help you blast through every flimsy notion that would otherwise keep you from seeing that even now I hold you in the palm of my hand and that all things are possible.
Such a deal,
The Universe
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Proceed directly to GO
In many regards, Andrew, it's as if everyone is playing a giant board game, and this time around you chose the Andrew Hawkins token. Clutch! Now, the object is not to buy properties, or to contort your body, or to vote others off, but simply to like all that Andrew Hawkins likes, to choose all that Andrew Hawkins wants to choose, and to follow Andrew Hawkins's heart, all in the tiny little turn you're given. Proceed directly to "GO," and collect your very own pair of sexy, euro-style pants. - The Universe
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
i love having a president who inspires me
i will not live beyond my means.
i will dream loud.
i will follow my dreams.
i will innovate.
i will cling to my ideas.
i will not be ashamed about who i love.
i will be a teacher.
i will hope.
i will have faith.
i will challenge myself and others.
i will respect my legacy.
i will respect the legacy of my country.
i will re invent my self.
i will dream loud.
i will follow my dreams.
i will innovate.
i will cling to my ideas.
i will not be ashamed about who i love.
i will be a teacher.
i will hope.
i will have faith.
i will challenge myself and others.
i will respect my legacy.
i will respect the legacy of my country.
i will re invent my self.
if they can do it, so can the Middle East...
Prince and Madonna End Decades-Long Feud
Holiday, celebrate!
Fellow music superstars Prince and Madonna appear to have ended their decades-long feud.
The Material Girl, 52, was among the celebrities cheering on Prince's sold-out Tuesday show at NYC's Madison Square Garden. (Other A-listers in attendance: Jimmy Fallon, Donald and Melania Trump and an awestruck Leighton Meester, whom Prince serenaded onstage.)
During the show, an attendee reports that Prince, also 52, made a good-natured joke about the high price of Madonna's concert tickets. 'I know I'm expensive!' he joshed, then making a friendly call-out to Madonna by name.
Things were far less friendly between the pair, who briefly dated in 1985 and who dueted on 'Love Song,' a track from Madonna's 1988 Like a Prayer album.
Madonna sniped in an interview that Prince was a 'little troll,' and quipped in 1994 that he wouldn't eat during a dinner date. 'He was just sipping tea, very daintily,' Madonna said. 'I have this theory about people who don't eat. They annoy me.'
For his part, Prince slammed Madonna - and her growing brood of children - during a 2007 concert in London, sniping, 'I got so many hits y'all can't handle me. I got more hits than Madonna's got kids.'
Holiday, celebrate!
Fellow music superstars Prince and Madonna appear to have ended their decades-long feud.
The Material Girl, 52, was among the celebrities cheering on Prince's sold-out Tuesday show at NYC's Madison Square Garden. (Other A-listers in attendance: Jimmy Fallon, Donald and Melania Trump and an awestruck Leighton Meester, whom Prince serenaded onstage.)
During the show, an attendee reports that Prince, also 52, made a good-natured joke about the high price of Madonna's concert tickets. 'I know I'm expensive!' he joshed, then making a friendly call-out to Madonna by name.
Things were far less friendly between the pair, who briefly dated in 1985 and who dueted on 'Love Song,' a track from Madonna's 1988 Like a Prayer album.
Madonna sniped in an interview that Prince was a 'little troll,' and quipped in 1994 that he wouldn't eat during a dinner date. 'He was just sipping tea, very daintily,' Madonna said. 'I have this theory about people who don't eat. They annoy me.'
For his part, Prince slammed Madonna - and her growing brood of children - during a 2007 concert in London, sniping, 'I got so many hits y'all can't handle me. I got more hits than Madonna's got kids.'
Monday, January 10, 2011
words, words, words
Shooting suspect's nihilism rose with isolation
By JUSTIN PRITCHARD, Associated Press Justin Pritchard, Associated Press
Sun Jan 9, 7:09 pm ET
TUCSON, Ariz. – At an event roughly three years ago, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords took a question from Jared Loughner, the man accused of trying to assassinate her and killing six other people. According to two of his high school friends the question was essentially this: "What is government if words have no meaning?"
Loughner was angry about her response — she read the question and had nothing to say.
"He did not like government officials, how they spoke. Like they were just trying to cover up some conspiracy," one friend told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Both friends spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they wanted to avoid the publicity surrounding the case. To them, the question was classic Jared: confrontational, nonlinear and obsessed with how words create reality.
The friends' comments paint a picture bolstered by other former classmates and Loughner's own Internet postings: That of a social outcast with nihilistic, almost indecipherable beliefs steeped in mistrust and paranoia.
"If you call me a terrorist then the argument to call me a terrorist is Ad hominem," the 22-year-old wrote Dec. 15, part of a wide-ranging screed that was posted in video form and ended with this: "What's government if words don't have meaning?"
On Sunday, Loughner was charged with the shootings a day earlier at a political event outside a Tucson supermarket. Aside from the six killed, 14 people were wounded. Doctors were optimistic about Giffords' chances for survival.
Loughner had at least one other contact with Giffords. Investigators said they carried out a search warrant at Loughner's home and seized a letter addressed to him from Giffords' congressional stationery in which she thanked him for attending a "Congress on your Corner" event at a mall in Tucson in 2007 — the same kind of event where officials say Loughner opened fire Saturday.
Other evidence seized from his home included an envelope from a safe with messages such as "I planned ahead," "My assassination" and the name "Giffords" next to what appears to be Loughner's signature.
His high school friends said they fell out of touch with Loughner and last spoke to him around March, when one of them was going to set up some bottles in the desert for target practice and Loughner suggested he might come along. It was unusual — Loughner hadn't expressed an interest in guns before — and his increasingly confrontational behavior was pushing them apart. He would send nonsensical text messages, but also break off contact for weeks on end.
"We just started getting sketched out about him," the friend said. It was the first time he'd felt that way.
Around the same time, Loughner's behavior also began to worry officials at Pima Community College, where Loughner began attending classes in 2005, the school said in a release.
Between February and September, Loughner "had five contacts with PCC police for classroom and library disruptions," the statement said. He was suspended in September 2010 after college police discovered a YouTube video in which Loughner claimed the college was illegal according to the U.S. Constitution. He withdrew voluntarily the following month, and was told he could return only if he met certain conditions, including getting a mental health professional to agree that his presence on campus did not present a danger, the school said.
To his friends, it had been a gradual alienation.
The Loughner they met when he was a freshman at Mountain View High School may have been socially awkward, but he was generally happy and fun to be around. The crew smoked marijuana everyday, and when they weren't going to concerts or watching movies they talked about the meaning of life and dabbled in conspiracy theories.
Mistrust of government was his defining conviction, the friends said. He believed the government was behind 9/11, and worried that governments were maneuvering to create a unified monetary system ("a New World Order currency" one friend said) so that social elites and bureaucrats could control the rest of the world.
On his YouTube page, he listed among his favorite books "Animal Farm" and "Brave New World" — two novels about how authorities control the masses. Other books he listed in the wide-ranging list included "Mein Kampf," "The Communist Manifesto," "Peter Pan" and Aesop's Fables.
Over time, Loughner became increasingly engrossed in his own thoughts — what one of the friends described as a "nihilistic rut."
Loughner, an ardent atheist, began to characterize people as sheep whose free will was being sapped by the monotony of modern life.
"He didn't want people to wake up and do the same thing every day. He wanted more chaos, he wanted less regularity," one friend said.
The friend added that Loughner believed government was trying to get people to accept their meaningless lives so that they would stop dreaming — literally.
He told anyone who would listen that the world we see does not exist, that words have no meaning — and that the only way to derive meaning was during sleep.
Loughner began obsessing about a practice called lucid dreaming, in which people try to actively control their dreams. He kept a detailed journal about what he saw while asleep, and tried to get the friends involved.
Several people who knew Loughner at community college said he did not seem especially political, but was socially awkward. He laughed at the wrong things, made inappropriate comments. Most students sat away from him in class.
"He made a lot of the people really uncomfortable, especially the girls in the class," said Steven Cates, who attended an advanced poetry writing class with Loughner at Pima Community College last spring. Though he struck up a superficial friendship with Loughner, he said a group of other students went to the teacher to complain about Loughner at one point.
Another poetry student, Don Coorough, said Loughner read a "kind of a bland" poem about going to the gym in wild "poetry slam" style — "grabbing his crotch and jumping around the room."
When other students read their poems, meanwhile, Coorough said Loughner "would laugh at things that you wouldn't laugh at." After one woman read a poem about abortion, "he was turning all shades of red and laughing," and said, "Wow, she's just like a terrorist, she killed a baby," Coorough said.
"He appeared to be to me an emotional cripple or an emotional child," Coorough said. "He lacked compassion, he lacked understanding and he lacked an ability to connect."
Cates said Loughner "didn't have the social intelligence, but he definitely had the academic intelligence."
"He was very into the knowledge aspect of school. He was really into his philosophy classes and he was really into logic and English. And he would get frustrated by the dumbed-down words people used in class," Cates said.
Loughner expressed his interest in grammar and logic on the Internet as he made bizarre claims — such as that the Mars rover and the space shuttle missions were faked.
He frequently used "if-then" constructions in making nonsensical arguments. For instance: "If the living space is able to maintain the crews life at a temperature of -454F then the human body is alive in the NASA Space Shuttle. The human body isn't alive in the NASA Space Shuttle. Thus, the living space isn't able to maintain the crews life at a temperature of -454F."
Loughner also said in one video that government is "implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar." He said described America's laws as "treasonous," said the "every human who's mentally capable is always able to be treasurer of their new currency," and that "if the property owners and government officials are no longer in ownership of their land and laws from a revolution then the revolutionary's from the revolution are in control of the land and laws."
Loughner described himself as a U.S. military recruit in the video, but the Army released a statement indicating Loughner was not accepted.
"He attempted to enlist in the Army but was rejected for service. In accordance with the Privacy Act, we will not discuss why he was rejected," it said.
Loughner tried to enlist because it was one way of getting out of the "T-Loc" life — kicking around as a Tucson local — one of the friends said.
In October 2007, Loughner was cited in Pima County for possession of drug paraphernalia, which was dismissed after he completed a diversion program, according to online records.
A year later he was charged with an unknown "local charge" in Marana near Tucson. That charge was also dismissed following the completion of a diversion program in March 2009, the Daily Star reported.
"He has kind of a troubled past, I can tell you that," Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said.
By JUSTIN PRITCHARD, Associated Press Justin Pritchard, Associated Press
Sun Jan 9, 7:09 pm ET
TUCSON, Ariz. – At an event roughly three years ago, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords took a question from Jared Loughner, the man accused of trying to assassinate her and killing six other people. According to two of his high school friends the question was essentially this: "What is government if words have no meaning?"
Loughner was angry about her response — she read the question and had nothing to say.
"He did not like government officials, how they spoke. Like they were just trying to cover up some conspiracy," one friend told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Both friends spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they wanted to avoid the publicity surrounding the case. To them, the question was classic Jared: confrontational, nonlinear and obsessed with how words create reality.
The friends' comments paint a picture bolstered by other former classmates and Loughner's own Internet postings: That of a social outcast with nihilistic, almost indecipherable beliefs steeped in mistrust and paranoia.
"If you call me a terrorist then the argument to call me a terrorist is Ad hominem," the 22-year-old wrote Dec. 15, part of a wide-ranging screed that was posted in video form and ended with this: "What's government if words don't have meaning?"
On Sunday, Loughner was charged with the shootings a day earlier at a political event outside a Tucson supermarket. Aside from the six killed, 14 people were wounded. Doctors were optimistic about Giffords' chances for survival.
Loughner had at least one other contact with Giffords. Investigators said they carried out a search warrant at Loughner's home and seized a letter addressed to him from Giffords' congressional stationery in which she thanked him for attending a "Congress on your Corner" event at a mall in Tucson in 2007 — the same kind of event where officials say Loughner opened fire Saturday.
Other evidence seized from his home included an envelope from a safe with messages such as "I planned ahead," "My assassination" and the name "Giffords" next to what appears to be Loughner's signature.
His high school friends said they fell out of touch with Loughner and last spoke to him around March, when one of them was going to set up some bottles in the desert for target practice and Loughner suggested he might come along. It was unusual — Loughner hadn't expressed an interest in guns before — and his increasingly confrontational behavior was pushing them apart. He would send nonsensical text messages, but also break off contact for weeks on end.
"We just started getting sketched out about him," the friend said. It was the first time he'd felt that way.
Around the same time, Loughner's behavior also began to worry officials at Pima Community College, where Loughner began attending classes in 2005, the school said in a release.
Between February and September, Loughner "had five contacts with PCC police for classroom and library disruptions," the statement said. He was suspended in September 2010 after college police discovered a YouTube video in which Loughner claimed the college was illegal according to the U.S. Constitution. He withdrew voluntarily the following month, and was told he could return only if he met certain conditions, including getting a mental health professional to agree that his presence on campus did not present a danger, the school said.
To his friends, it had been a gradual alienation.
The Loughner they met when he was a freshman at Mountain View High School may have been socially awkward, but he was generally happy and fun to be around. The crew smoked marijuana everyday, and when they weren't going to concerts or watching movies they talked about the meaning of life and dabbled in conspiracy theories.
Mistrust of government was his defining conviction, the friends said. He believed the government was behind 9/11, and worried that governments were maneuvering to create a unified monetary system ("a New World Order currency" one friend said) so that social elites and bureaucrats could control the rest of the world.
On his YouTube page, he listed among his favorite books "Animal Farm" and "Brave New World" — two novels about how authorities control the masses. Other books he listed in the wide-ranging list included "Mein Kampf," "The Communist Manifesto," "Peter Pan" and Aesop's Fables.
Over time, Loughner became increasingly engrossed in his own thoughts — what one of the friends described as a "nihilistic rut."
Loughner, an ardent atheist, began to characterize people as sheep whose free will was being sapped by the monotony of modern life.
"He didn't want people to wake up and do the same thing every day. He wanted more chaos, he wanted less regularity," one friend said.
The friend added that Loughner believed government was trying to get people to accept their meaningless lives so that they would stop dreaming — literally.
He told anyone who would listen that the world we see does not exist, that words have no meaning — and that the only way to derive meaning was during sleep.
Loughner began obsessing about a practice called lucid dreaming, in which people try to actively control their dreams. He kept a detailed journal about what he saw while asleep, and tried to get the friends involved.
Several people who knew Loughner at community college said he did not seem especially political, but was socially awkward. He laughed at the wrong things, made inappropriate comments. Most students sat away from him in class.
"He made a lot of the people really uncomfortable, especially the girls in the class," said Steven Cates, who attended an advanced poetry writing class with Loughner at Pima Community College last spring. Though he struck up a superficial friendship with Loughner, he said a group of other students went to the teacher to complain about Loughner at one point.
Another poetry student, Don Coorough, said Loughner read a "kind of a bland" poem about going to the gym in wild "poetry slam" style — "grabbing his crotch and jumping around the room."
When other students read their poems, meanwhile, Coorough said Loughner "would laugh at things that you wouldn't laugh at." After one woman read a poem about abortion, "he was turning all shades of red and laughing," and said, "Wow, she's just like a terrorist, she killed a baby," Coorough said.
"He appeared to be to me an emotional cripple or an emotional child," Coorough said. "He lacked compassion, he lacked understanding and he lacked an ability to connect."
Cates said Loughner "didn't have the social intelligence, but he definitely had the academic intelligence."
"He was very into the knowledge aspect of school. He was really into his philosophy classes and he was really into logic and English. And he would get frustrated by the dumbed-down words people used in class," Cates said.
Loughner expressed his interest in grammar and logic on the Internet as he made bizarre claims — such as that the Mars rover and the space shuttle missions were faked.
He frequently used "if-then" constructions in making nonsensical arguments. For instance: "If the living space is able to maintain the crews life at a temperature of -454F then the human body is alive in the NASA Space Shuttle. The human body isn't alive in the NASA Space Shuttle. Thus, the living space isn't able to maintain the crews life at a temperature of -454F."
Loughner also said in one video that government is "implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar." He said described America's laws as "treasonous," said the "every human who's mentally capable is always able to be treasurer of their new currency," and that "if the property owners and government officials are no longer in ownership of their land and laws from a revolution then the revolutionary's from the revolution are in control of the land and laws."
Loughner described himself as a U.S. military recruit in the video, but the Army released a statement indicating Loughner was not accepted.
"He attempted to enlist in the Army but was rejected for service. In accordance with the Privacy Act, we will not discuss why he was rejected," it said.
Loughner tried to enlist because it was one way of getting out of the "T-Loc" life — kicking around as a Tucson local — one of the friends said.
In October 2007, Loughner was cited in Pima County for possession of drug paraphernalia, which was dismissed after he completed a diversion program, according to online records.
A year later he was charged with an unknown "local charge" in Marana near Tucson. That charge was also dismissed following the completion of a diversion program in March 2009, the Daily Star reported.
"He has kind of a troubled past, I can tell you that," Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said.
ok - wow
The ability to stop, reflect, and go "wow," Andrew, is one of the wisest characteristics an old soul can possess.
I recommend it daily,
The Universe
I recommend it daily,
The Universe
Thursday, January 6, 2011
AND THE SHOW WENT ON.
Nazi occupation, when the City of Light had its darkest hour
By Michael Dirda
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, January 6, 2011; C01
AND THE SHOW WENT ON
Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris
By Alan Riding.
Knopf. 399 pp. $28.95
Alan Riding is an esteemed journalist, long a European cultural correspondent for the New York Times and, before that, the author of what is still the best modern introduction to Mexico, "Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans." Since 1985 the book has sold nearly half a million copies. "And the Show Went On" deserves a comparable success. It is certainly one of the finest works of serious popular history since the heyday of Barbara Tuchman. If you're a Francophile or a Francophobe, this is the holiday present you should have received.
Like Tuchman's "The Proud Tower" and "The Guns of August" - her portraits of European society and politics in the years leading up to World War I - Riding's account of "cultural life in Nazi-occupied Paris" is actually larger than its announced subject. As he writes in his preface, "How, I wondered, had artists and intellectuals addressed the city's worst political moment of the twentieth century? Did talent and status impose a greater moral responsibility? Was it possible for culture to flourish without political freedom?" Riding's triumph lies in refusing to affirm any simplistic answers. Instead, he plunges the reader into the French cultural scene of the 1930s and '40s and shows us how real men and real women dealt with the devil.
"On June 14, 1940, the German army drove into Paris unopposed. Within weeks, the remnants of French democracy were quietly buried and the Third Reich settled in for an indefinite occupation of France." Many French fascists and anti-Semites, including the important novelists Cline and Robert Brasillach and public intellectual Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, welcomed the Nazis. A few writers and artists elected silence (essayist Jean Guehenno), exile (surrealist Andre Breton) or cunning (Picasso). But most chose various forms of accommodation. Where, though, did accommodation leave off and collaboration begin?
Despite the Wehrmacht uniforms on many members of their audiences, French artists still wanted to make movies and music, mount plays and ballets, publish poems and novels. Between 1940 and 1945, Albert Camus brought out "The Stranger," Colette created "Gigi," Jean-Paul Sartre presented "The Flies" and "No Exit," and Marcel Carne directed his epic film "Les Enfants du Paradis." Was it not, after all, essential to maintain French cultural institutions at such a dark hour? Or was it simply that, as Guehenno acidly observed in his journal, the Parisian man of letters was "incapable of surviving for long in hiding, he would sell his soul to see his name in print. . . . 'French literature must continue.' He believes that he is French literature and thought and that they will die without him."
Marshal Philippe Petain similarly justified the Vichy regime, in which the southern half of France was permitted limited autonomy in return for pledging loyalty to her conqueror: Thus, Gallic culture and traditions would survive, perhaps even be reinvigorated. The Nazis, of course, simply wanted the French pacified or co-opted: It made ruling them all that much easier. As Hitler once told Albert Speer: "Let's let them degenerate. All the better for us."
Then, again, even Aryan warriors need occasional R & R. So the Reich also wanted Paris to remain Paris - the world's favorite playground. Educated Germans, like the novelist Ernst Juenger, could enjoy its salons, theaters and dining at Maxim's. Gerhard Heller, who oversaw cultural activities for the Propaganda Staffel, soon counted distinguished novelists, critics and editors among his new best friends. The actress Arletty and the couturier Coco Chanel took German lovers; the playwright Sacha Guitry preened for Teutonic attention; and the frivolous genius Jean Cocteau enthused about the monumental sculpture of Arno Breker, Hitler's favorite artist. Meanwhile, goose-stepping foot soldiers could visit those other high-kickers at the Folies Bergere, or shop for silk underclothes for girlfriends back home. And not all of these were back home. It's been estimated that "collaboration horizontale" resulted in 100,000 to 200,000 children with German fathers.
All in all, life in Paris could continue with a degree of normality - if you weren't a Jew. In short order, all Jewish businesses were Aryanized, art collections seized (Hitler liked Old Masters), and innumerable scholars, teachers, actors, musicians, writers and intellectuals banned from working. Later came the yellow stars and the "rafles," in which undesirables were rounded up and sent to a camp at Drancy before being loaded onto cattle cars bound for Auschwitz. The government actively assisted their new masters in this loathsomeness. And yet, as Riding reminds us, "the record of the French as a whole was more heartening. Three-quarters of the Jews trapped in France in 1940 escaped deportation and . . . most survived because they were in some way protected - or at least not denounced - by their French neighbors."
Various chapters in "And the Show Went On" focus on the movie industry, publishing, the art trade, nightlife, opera and ballet, magazines and newspapers, as well as Nazi cultural events. It's nonetheless shocking to learn of the questionable performances, in all senses, of pianist Alfred Cortot, soprano Germaine Lubin, actor Maurice Chevalier and chanteuse Edith Piaf. Each had his or her reasons, and Riding seeks to understand them.
Still, there were clear heroes and heroines. Dina Vierny, a very young model for Maillol, Bonnard and Matisse, guided escapees through the mountain passes to Spain. The waspish diarist Jean Galtier-Boissiere recorded every aspect of the betrayal of the intellectuals. Jean Paulhan, the longtime editor of the Nouvelle Revue Francaise, led a Scarlet Pimpernel existence as an habitue of salons and a leader of the resistance. Rose Valland, a nondescript employee of the Jeu de Paume, risked her life to keep a secret record of the art - more than 20,000 works - looted from Jewish collections.
One entire chapter chronicles the birth of organized resistance by the long revered "Reseau du Musee de l'Homme," that is, the Museum of Man network, so called because many of its members were, believe it or not, ethnologists. Twenty-eight of them were killed by the Nazis. Riding notes that "at a time when most of the French were coming to terms with the occupation, they were almost alone in acting on their belief in the idea of resistance." That idea, however, spread. Eminent poets, including Louis Aragon and Paul Eluard, organized underground movements; Rene Char commanded an army of 2,000 maquis.
In the end, Parisians were judged by the company they kept, and sometimes saved by whom they knew. During the occupation the fascist Drieu La Rochelle told Gerhard Heller to "make sure nothing ever happens to Malraux, Paulhan, Gaston Gallimard and Aragon, no matter what allegations are brought against them." These may have been ideological enemies, but they were also friends and former classmates. In 1945, after Drieu La Rochelle committed suicide to avoid being tried for treason, nearly all of them came to his funeral.
Dirda reviews books every Thursday for The Post.
By Michael Dirda
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, January 6, 2011; C01
AND THE SHOW WENT ON
Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris
By Alan Riding.
Knopf. 399 pp. $28.95
Alan Riding is an esteemed journalist, long a European cultural correspondent for the New York Times and, before that, the author of what is still the best modern introduction to Mexico, "Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans." Since 1985 the book has sold nearly half a million copies. "And the Show Went On" deserves a comparable success. It is certainly one of the finest works of serious popular history since the heyday of Barbara Tuchman. If you're a Francophile or a Francophobe, this is the holiday present you should have received.
Like Tuchman's "The Proud Tower" and "The Guns of August" - her portraits of European society and politics in the years leading up to World War I - Riding's account of "cultural life in Nazi-occupied Paris" is actually larger than its announced subject. As he writes in his preface, "How, I wondered, had artists and intellectuals addressed the city's worst political moment of the twentieth century? Did talent and status impose a greater moral responsibility? Was it possible for culture to flourish without political freedom?" Riding's triumph lies in refusing to affirm any simplistic answers. Instead, he plunges the reader into the French cultural scene of the 1930s and '40s and shows us how real men and real women dealt with the devil.
"On June 14, 1940, the German army drove into Paris unopposed. Within weeks, the remnants of French democracy were quietly buried and the Third Reich settled in for an indefinite occupation of France." Many French fascists and anti-Semites, including the important novelists Cline and Robert Brasillach and public intellectual Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, welcomed the Nazis. A few writers and artists elected silence (essayist Jean Guehenno), exile (surrealist Andre Breton) or cunning (Picasso). But most chose various forms of accommodation. Where, though, did accommodation leave off and collaboration begin?
Despite the Wehrmacht uniforms on many members of their audiences, French artists still wanted to make movies and music, mount plays and ballets, publish poems and novels. Between 1940 and 1945, Albert Camus brought out "The Stranger," Colette created "Gigi," Jean-Paul Sartre presented "The Flies" and "No Exit," and Marcel Carne directed his epic film "Les Enfants du Paradis." Was it not, after all, essential to maintain French cultural institutions at such a dark hour? Or was it simply that, as Guehenno acidly observed in his journal, the Parisian man of letters was "incapable of surviving for long in hiding, he would sell his soul to see his name in print. . . . 'French literature must continue.' He believes that he is French literature and thought and that they will die without him."
Marshal Philippe Petain similarly justified the Vichy regime, in which the southern half of France was permitted limited autonomy in return for pledging loyalty to her conqueror: Thus, Gallic culture and traditions would survive, perhaps even be reinvigorated. The Nazis, of course, simply wanted the French pacified or co-opted: It made ruling them all that much easier. As Hitler once told Albert Speer: "Let's let them degenerate. All the better for us."
Then, again, even Aryan warriors need occasional R & R. So the Reich also wanted Paris to remain Paris - the world's favorite playground. Educated Germans, like the novelist Ernst Juenger, could enjoy its salons, theaters and dining at Maxim's. Gerhard Heller, who oversaw cultural activities for the Propaganda Staffel, soon counted distinguished novelists, critics and editors among his new best friends. The actress Arletty and the couturier Coco Chanel took German lovers; the playwright Sacha Guitry preened for Teutonic attention; and the frivolous genius Jean Cocteau enthused about the monumental sculpture of Arno Breker, Hitler's favorite artist. Meanwhile, goose-stepping foot soldiers could visit those other high-kickers at the Folies Bergere, or shop for silk underclothes for girlfriends back home. And not all of these were back home. It's been estimated that "collaboration horizontale" resulted in 100,000 to 200,000 children with German fathers.
All in all, life in Paris could continue with a degree of normality - if you weren't a Jew. In short order, all Jewish businesses were Aryanized, art collections seized (Hitler liked Old Masters), and innumerable scholars, teachers, actors, musicians, writers and intellectuals banned from working. Later came the yellow stars and the "rafles," in which undesirables were rounded up and sent to a camp at Drancy before being loaded onto cattle cars bound for Auschwitz. The government actively assisted their new masters in this loathsomeness. And yet, as Riding reminds us, "the record of the French as a whole was more heartening. Three-quarters of the Jews trapped in France in 1940 escaped deportation and . . . most survived because they were in some way protected - or at least not denounced - by their French neighbors."
Various chapters in "And the Show Went On" focus on the movie industry, publishing, the art trade, nightlife, opera and ballet, magazines and newspapers, as well as Nazi cultural events. It's nonetheless shocking to learn of the questionable performances, in all senses, of pianist Alfred Cortot, soprano Germaine Lubin, actor Maurice Chevalier and chanteuse Edith Piaf. Each had his or her reasons, and Riding seeks to understand them.
Still, there were clear heroes and heroines. Dina Vierny, a very young model for Maillol, Bonnard and Matisse, guided escapees through the mountain passes to Spain. The waspish diarist Jean Galtier-Boissiere recorded every aspect of the betrayal of the intellectuals. Jean Paulhan, the longtime editor of the Nouvelle Revue Francaise, led a Scarlet Pimpernel existence as an habitue of salons and a leader of the resistance. Rose Valland, a nondescript employee of the Jeu de Paume, risked her life to keep a secret record of the art - more than 20,000 works - looted from Jewish collections.
One entire chapter chronicles the birth of organized resistance by the long revered "Reseau du Musee de l'Homme," that is, the Museum of Man network, so called because many of its members were, believe it or not, ethnologists. Twenty-eight of them were killed by the Nazis. Riding notes that "at a time when most of the French were coming to terms with the occupation, they were almost alone in acting on their belief in the idea of resistance." That idea, however, spread. Eminent poets, including Louis Aragon and Paul Eluard, organized underground movements; Rene Char commanded an army of 2,000 maquis.
In the end, Parisians were judged by the company they kept, and sometimes saved by whom they knew. During the occupation the fascist Drieu La Rochelle told Gerhard Heller to "make sure nothing ever happens to Malraux, Paulhan, Gaston Gallimard and Aragon, no matter what allegations are brought against them." These may have been ideological enemies, but they were also friends and former classmates. In 1945, after Drieu La Rochelle committed suicide to avoid being tried for treason, nearly all of them came to his funeral.
Dirda reviews books every Thursday for The Post.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
comforting to read, since my emotions have been all over the map this week
Yeah, Andrew, I know it seems that your emotions arise from circumstances, even though it works the other way around. And this is kind of scary because sometimes they literally seem to overrun you.
But I also know that most of the time they don't, which is all the leverage you need.
Just feel good when you can; it'll always be enough.
Can you feel me, now?
The Universe
But I also know that most of the time they don't, which is all the leverage you need.
Just feel good when you can; it'll always be enough.
Can you feel me, now?
The Universe
Monday, January 3, 2011
Sunday, January 2, 2011
from "etravraiavous"
2010.
I found myself before I lost myself.
I am ending the year neutral.
I am no better, nor worse, then I originally was.
(Just a little more wiser)
I realised the relationships that were important to me
& I let go of the ones that weren’t.
I fell in lust that definitely ended in hate &
I’m in lust that could end in love.
But I let myself fall and I fell hard.
I broke free of living a stereotypical, society pleasing lifestyle.
I created memories that will never be erased.
I’ve learnt many lessons that will never be forgotten.
I am a firm believer in living life with no regrets, just mistakes
And I can honestly say, I have made minimal this year.
I don’t usually buy into New Year resolutions, because nothing ever
happens over night. So I am ending the year with this thought;
“Every year you make a resolution to change yourself.. This year
make a resoultion to be yourself.”
Please note; I rarely do text posts & I shall probably delete this shortly.
I just had to get it out. x
I found myself before I lost myself.
I am ending the year neutral.
I am no better, nor worse, then I originally was.
(Just a little more wiser)
I realised the relationships that were important to me
& I let go of the ones that weren’t.
I fell in lust that definitely ended in hate &
I’m in lust that could end in love.
But I let myself fall and I fell hard.
I broke free of living a stereotypical, society pleasing lifestyle.
I created memories that will never be erased.
I’ve learnt many lessons that will never be forgotten.
I am a firm believer in living life with no regrets, just mistakes
And I can honestly say, I have made minimal this year.
I don’t usually buy into New Year resolutions, because nothing ever
happens over night. So I am ending the year with this thought;
“Every year you make a resolution to change yourself.. This year
make a resoultion to be yourself.”
Please note; I rarely do text posts & I shall probably delete this shortly.
I just had to get it out. x
Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries
Life is just a bowl of cherries
Don't take it serious,
Life's too mysterious
You work,
You save,
You worry so
But you can't take your dough
When you go, go, go
So keep repeating "It's the berries."
The strongest oak must fall
The sweet things in life
To you were just loaned
So how can you lose
What you've never owned
Life is just a bowl of cherries
So live and laugh, aha!
Laugh and love
Live and laugh,
Laugh and love,
Live and laugh at it all!
Don't take it serious,
Life's too mysterious
You work,
You save,
You worry so
But you can't take your dough
When you go, go, go
So keep repeating "It's the berries."
The strongest oak must fall
The sweet things in life
To you were just loaned
So how can you lose
What you've never owned
Life is just a bowl of cherries
So live and laugh, aha!
Laugh and love
Live and laugh,
Laugh and love,
Live and laugh at it all!
Saturday, January 1, 2011
How Does It Feel To Be A Heart?
by Hafiz
Once a young woman asked me,
“How does it feel to be a man?”
And I replied,
“My dear,
I am not so sure.”
Then she said,
“Well, aren’t you a man?”
And this time I replied,
“I view gender
As a beautiful animal
That people often take for a walk on a leash
And might enter in some odd contest
To try to win strange prizes.
My dear,
A better question for Hafiz
Would have been,
‘How does it feel to be a heart?’
For all I know is Love,
And I find my heart Infinite
And Everywhere!”
Once a young woman asked me,
“How does it feel to be a man?”
And I replied,
“My dear,
I am not so sure.”
Then she said,
“Well, aren’t you a man?”
And this time I replied,
“I view gender
As a beautiful animal
That people often take for a walk on a leash
And might enter in some odd contest
To try to win strange prizes.
My dear,
A better question for Hafiz
Would have been,
‘How does it feel to be a heart?’
For all I know is Love,
And I find my heart Infinite
And Everywhere!”
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
They asked me how I knew
My true love was true
Oh, I of course replied
Something here inside cannot be denied
They said someday you'll find
All who love are blind
Oh, when your heart's on fire
You must realize
Smoke gets in your eyes
So I chaffed them and I gaily laughed
To think they could doubt my love
Yet today my love has flown away
I am without my love
Now laughing friends deride
Tears I can not hide
Oh, so I smile and say
When a lovely flame dies
Smoke gets in your eyes
Smoke gets in your eyes
My true love was true
Oh, I of course replied
Something here inside cannot be denied
They said someday you'll find
All who love are blind
Oh, when your heart's on fire
You must realize
Smoke gets in your eyes
So I chaffed them and I gaily laughed
To think they could doubt my love
Yet today my love has flown away
I am without my love
Now laughing friends deride
Tears I can not hide
Oh, so I smile and say
When a lovely flame dies
Smoke gets in your eyes
Smoke gets in your eyes
It's no fun to be a secret pioneer
via Fantasia’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” sequence (1940, dir. James Algar)
“Walt Disney sure had me fooled. I always thought he was an Establishment square, the pious merchant of every virtue that middle America cherishes and young America hates. Who else could make cuteness so commercial? Or extract so many millions from a mouse?
But suddenly the young have embraced this king of squares. His Fantasia was revived recently at a New York theater and, overnight, there they were, lined up outside, making such a box-office hit of the 30-year-old film that it’s now being booked into cities and college towns all across the country. Obviously Fantasia is saying something to the young in 1970 that it wasn’t saying to me — or anyone — in 1940. I remember it then for its heavy cultural pretensions: Uncle Walt bringing good music to the masses by wrapping it in easy-to-take animated cartoons.
The other day I went to the movie again and saw just what the young have discovered - that Disney was zonked out of his mind while making the movie and so was his entire studio. Safely hidden behind the chaste pillars of classical music, he was a hippie 30 years ahead of his time, producing a psychadelic light-and-sound show that was his only flop because nobody was freaked out enough to dig it.
Knowing this, I now feel sorry for Disney. It’s no fun to be a secret pioneer. In Fantasia he anticipated by a whole generation the ideas that were to bestow instant priesthood on Marshall McLuhan, Timothy Leary, & Allen Ginsberg, and he died without getting any of the credit. Long before TV made us a visual society feeding on picture images, long before McLuhan announced that ‘the medium is the message’, Disney was giving us a sensory experience, America’s first acid trip.”
-William Zinsser, “Walt Disney’s Secret Freakout”, LIFE magazine (April 1970)
Whirling Dervish (wurl-ing dur-vish) n. 1. A mystical
dancer who stands between the material and cosmic
worlds. His dance is part of a sacred ceremony
in which the dervish rotates in a precise rhythm.
He represents the earth revolving on its axis while
orbiting the sun. The purpose of the ritual whirling
is for the dervish to empty himself of all distracting
thoughts, placing him in trance; released from
his body he conquers dizziness.
Top 5 Theatre of 2010
Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo
by Rajiv Joseph
May 28, 2010 at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, CA
Completely blown away by this piece! Steeped in rich, raw, and arresting theatricality and humanity... I was so pumped to read a few months ago that it will finally get a Broadway debut in March with Robin Williams - and that they are bringing back Moises Kaufmann to do it. I saw this piece with my Mom in LA on a day trip we took and she was wow'd by it too. It was definitely one of the best theatrical experiences of 2010 because I was completely enraptured and alarmed from the opening sequences, as well as all the way through. That's how theater should be! Slap me in the god damn face! My mom and I discussed this piece, it's symbols, the characters, and the ideas a great deal on the car ride home to La Jolla as well as the next morning during breakfast. I was fortuante to meet Rajiv in May, too, when I assistant directed his "Gruesome Playground Injuries" as Woolly with John Vreeke - he's such a great guy and I think his work is only beginning. I look forward to seeing this in NY in 2011.
The Merchants of Bollywood
Sunday October 24, 2010 at George Mason University's Concert Hall
Abso-fucking-lutely this is in my Top 5! THIS was such a phenominal theaterical spectacle-ride.... Dancing numbers that blew my mind away. I remember thinking during intermission that I wish I could think like these Bollywood directors clearly think - in that they must think within so many layers of color and movement and music - I mean, I wish my imagination had the palette like they had. Every scene brought out another surpirse - genuine surprise, a mix of exotic, bollywood, india, hollywood, human drama, pop concert, camp and mime.
I was in such great company too... Kelly, Patrick, Heather, Michael, Nicole. All of Act I I was shaking my butt in my seat, by the middle of Act II we were up in the aisles- as well all 2,000 other people in the Concert Hall. Totally obsessed with the music - thank god Heather bought the soundtrack, I burned it instantly and STILL to this day months later routinely play it in my car. There are certain tracks on there I still can't get enough of. Music really can bring the people together.. it's an amazing feeling to be at at theatrical event, not a pop concert, but a theatrical event and have that many people up on their feet.
After the show, K and P and I went back stage and met several of the dancers, and even the lead actress Carol Fertado - hilarious. We got autographs, the dancers took movies of us raving about their performances. The whole damn thing... was just one of the best nights out to the theatre -ever.
11 and 12
by Peter Brook
at the Barbican Center February 8, 2010 at 7:45pm
I was very, very fortunate to be in London when I was. I seriously got lucky because I didn't do that much looking into what shows would be playing while I was there. 11 and 12 was written and directed by the now elderly Peter Brook - but what a master he still is! This was the best show of the year that illustrated to me the power of simplicity- theater that can be done with a gang of people, and a carpet, a chair and a few sticks. And also how if it's a play, the power will always lie with the story and it's humans, nothing else. Having an extravagant set is cute, but... if the people and the story aren't up to par, the whole thing will be worthless, fluff.
I had talked to many people about this idea before, but this, I think, was the first time I had seen it executed so masterfully. And it's Peter Brook! My god! The man is a genius. I personally love his style, I love his writings and I was completely moved by the entire experience.. even to the last moment where he lifts the lights in the house and the audience cues themselves when (or when not to) clap.
This was a very powerful theater week, I remember. Monday I saw this show- by myself at the Barbican - and later that week I had tickets to see Midsummer Night's Dream with Judi Dench at the Rose and Waiting for Godot with Ian McKellen at the Haymarket. Both powerhouse actors and both did masterful work that inspired me, but this 11 and 12 production has stayed with me longer.
Six Degrees of Separation
by John Guare
at the Old Vic, February 3, 2010 at 7:30pm
So obsessed with this play... and this was such a tight show. I was front row with Wided and countless times, our jaws dropped, our heads glanced from actor to actor...this piece had us on the edge of our seat. A sharp, well engineered play that roared staright through without an intermission... my god, I turned to Wided after the showed ended, after they took their bows and I said "this is the kind of theatre I want to do."
and that's that.
The Habit of Art
by Alan Bennett
January 12, 2010 at 2:15PM at the National Theatre, London
This was the first show I saw on my European trip this past year... front row and totally swept away from the high caliber of acting and the writing, which moved me greatly. A gang actors rehearsing a play about Auden and Britten - so its the story of the actors working with the writer and the stage management to produce and craft the piece, but it's also the play within the play, the story of the two artists themselves. An masterful meditation and conversation on humanity, art, sexaulity, identity, fear, the theater, and life.
This was, too, my very first trip to the National Theater. Last time I was in London I for some reason never made it there. This was, too, so soon after I arrived... it was a very special moment for me experiencing this piece by myself and taking ownership of what I had just done: travelled across the pond, after months of saving and dreaming and scheming, to learn, grow, explore, create, and dream even more. I was staying with my dearest friend, sister Wided while she studied at university.... and life seemed surreal and terrifying and mysterious and exhilarating.
I tried to go and see this piece a second time but tickets were sold out - I was SO fortunate to see this in Previews - but I'm happy with the single viewing because it keeps this experience collected and singluar and more powerful, I think. I bought the book to the play and love it - which I need to find..
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