— tapioca world tour

Haaaaaaaa ha ha…
Boston’s version = way better.

I just watched my new DVD of Lola Rennt, possibly my favorite film EVER, with voiceovers by director Tykwer and actress Franka Potente. I liked how Tykwer explains that half the cast were related to one another, almost every supporting cast member is a famous leading actor in Germany, and I liked how Potente encourages everyone to regularly scream as shrilly as Lola does throughout the movie. “It helps clear the mind,” she explains. “It’s quite fun.” There was also a lot of great dialogue about shooting techniques, production technicalities, etc., all of which I found very helpful.

Meanwhile, here’s a story for you:

Once upon a time I finally went to my Digital Multimedia Art class at Harvard Extension, only to hear my name called as I was about to sit down. I looked behind me to see the current girlfriend of my former ex from years and years ago. We know one another and are friendly, despite the sordid history of how awful I was to her in college. Anyway, so I sat next to her for class — we work in a PHATTY Mac lab full of G5s and HUUUUGE widescreen monitors. There is a new professor I expected wouldn’t be any good, but I was pleasantly surprised at how great he is, which is another exciting thing. Anyway, we covered the basics of Flash animation with his big overhead projection guiding us. He went very quickly, and literally if you blinked you could miss a step. I got frustrated because I was trying to follow along and do the steps myself, but I’d miss something and then my animation wouldn’t work and I wasn’t able to ask for help. I looked next to me, where the ex’s girlfriend was sitting, and she was checking her email and doing other internet things the entire time. Never once did she open Flash. Then I noticed a couple other people doing the same thing. What is your problem, people? Don’t come to class if you’re just gonna check your email! I know for many it was an overview of stuff they already know, but they could have at least feigned attention. This just reitterates my high school decision to always sit in the front row of a class you deem important…because otherwise you risk getting distracted, and distraction isn’t condusive to earning four graduate credits from Harvard Extension.

Aside from the slackers in the back, there are some nice people in that class. I greatly look forward to the rest of the semester. Bring on the learnin’!

Ya.

In light of that, here’s what S. tells me I’m missing at our house in Manchester:

[3:30:06 PM] audubon says: so how’s the house?
[3:30:38 PM] shiva roofeh says: i think there was a mushroom growing in the upstairs bathroom
[3:30:46 PM] audubon says: ew, cmon
[3:31:02 PM] shiva roofeh says: i didnt think it was possible
[3:31:07 PM] shiva roofeh says: but angeline tells me it is
[3:31:16 PM] shiva roofeh says: peter very quickly cleaned the bathroom the next day
[3:31:29 PM] audubon says: oh my god
[3:31:34 PM] audubon says: i can’t believe it
[3:31:35 PM] shiva roofeh says: and i vacuumed the stairs and the downstairs hall
[3:31:39 PM] shiva roofeh says: and theres a mouse
[3:31:56 PM] audubon says: really? just one?
[3:32:09 PM] shiva roofeh says: it ran infront of me from the livingroom closet to the oven, ten about 2 hours later, it ran to the bathroom.. im sure theres more
[3:32:14 PM] shiva roofeh says: its a baby
[3:32:55 PM] audubon says: hmm…maybe peter can cook it
[3:33:02 PM] audubon says: make a nice peruvian dish..
[3:33:43 PM] shiva roofeh says: eeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
[3:34:11 PM] shiva roofeh says: maybe itll go well with the mushroom

N. had a great quote today which I’d like to echo: I am constantly surprised at the depth of my own ignorance. What I sense in that is a potential for something greater, because progress never begins with self-satisfaction.

I just realized that I take for granted all the topics I deal with at work — sorting through photos from India on tsunami relief and anti-torchure conferences; converting DVD formats from our human rights partners in Thailand; then there’s less interesting stuff like paying bills and filing, but that’s no biggie.

I got a call today from the partner of a coworker of mine; she works in Immigrant Rights and wants me to produce a 15-minute PSA about a 19-yr-old Vietnamese guy with MS who’s struggling against immigration policies to stay in this country for medical care. Suddenly, I mean all of a sudden, I realize my insane efforts at overloading myself with video work are finally paying off — not literally, but that’ll come with time.

It’s a grey day, getting colder, but I like to think of it as winter’s final hurrah. Next comes summer, practically, and I cannot wait for that.

I want to write a manifesto of some sort but I’m not sure what about. I mean now, right now I want to write a manifesto, here on Tapioca World Tour 2005, but it’s already after midnight. I’ve just eaten three waffles with syrup and mixed berries (never as good as G.’s mom’s breakfasts) but I think it’s given me a second wind.

Met with J. and G. this evening to discuss filmy things. J. is such a great guy, and I always miss G. so it’s quite nice to see him despite the extent to which we bicker. I don’t want to be professional with either of these guys; I want to be active friends with both. I can’t wait until G. isn’t too busy to see me, and I can’t wait til I’m not too busy to see J. I want to look into the future and see the three of us 15 years from now, sipping virgin pineapple smoothies from a phatty flat somewhere, or at least videoconferencing via satellite handhelds in Boston (J.), LA (G.), and Brussels (Me). Technology can, God willing, only improve the quality of my friendships. It has to the present extent allowed me to communicate regularly with people in England, Belgium, France, Ecuador, The Netherlands, China, Argentina, Pakistan, India, Iraq, not to mention California, Oregon, and even my neighbors in Brooklyn and mom in Philly. Thank you, God, for these wonderful and perpetual advancements in communication. I’m serious, man. I’m really grateful, you’ve no idea.

I’m listening to Ray Charles. No, now it’s Mr. Scruff. But that’s not the point.

I can’t wait to have a decent living arrangement and hang up my punching bag and take my bike out of storage. My body is so furious at me for depriving it of any physical activity it’s nearly taken off in the night. Sometimes I wake up without feeling my arm and wonder if it left for good. I get strange stupid numbing pains at odd times: first I remember to be metaphysical; then I get excited at the prospect of spring, when I can be regularly physical in general. It was 50 degrees today. That’s a large start.

I can’t believe it’s been nearly a full year since 48. I feel like I haven’t accomplished much in the past year but in reality it’s been more cathartic than any other. I learned alot about video, I had a nice relationship with a nice guy which even ended congenially, B. and I finally left the green ghetto to go our separate and more professional ways (she’s done very well, to her credit), I met a lot of great people here and abroad, I gained lots of assessment skills (ie, assessing what situations are good, what are bad, and what to do about them), my mom finally got her own home, my father’s still alive and peripherally in touch, I now own a phat camcorder, digi camera and a 100-lb punching bag, and I’ve hurdled the lifelong challenge of eating both cooked and raw fish — and actually liking it! Also this year has been full of some really awesome babies. Life can only get better.

Granted, I have yet to attend my digi multimedia art class, even though it technically began three weeks ago, but the readings are thorough and amazing, if not thoroughly amazing. Many also exist online, as course content suggests; I highly recommend From Wagner to Virtual Reality as well as Rhizome and Les Manovich’s New Media from Borges to HTML.

I’m learning a lot, even with all the cancelled classes (I think they call that “distance learning”). Did you know,

that the new media movement parallels the socio-cultural “free association” revolution of the 1960s? That cyberculture is merely the adolescent spawn of William Burroughs and Dick Higgins and hippie anti-establishment Parisian neo-intellectuals of That Great Era when our grandmothers wore polkadots to the supermarket and men referred to one another as “cats”? (Wuz happenin’, cat? as opposed to today’s Waz goin’ on, dawg?)

I find all of this fascinating.

I’m sorry that you were raised on a
farm in a “socio-economically deprived area in the
northwest of Ireland”, running around with your cows
and shit – literally. Moo. I thank you, Declan Sweeny of
Leitrim, Ireland for being a complete and total idiot
because otherwise I would have fooled myself into
continuing to like your sorry ass.

-Excerpted from a funny mock letter by S.

Oh! The days would blur into eachother without things like this.