why yes, i am a snobbish artist.

so i want three different artists to study for my paper. andy goldsworthy, jackson pollock, and yet to be decided. i was reading about christo and jeanne-claude, this husband and wife artist duo. i went to their website, and was reading some stuff about them. they were the ones that surrounded an island in pink fabric. there is a section of their website called "common errors," and it's probably one of the most arrogant sounding things i've read in a long time. in the process of trying to clarify how they really feel, the end up making the reader so annoyed that they don't even care about the fact that christo and jeanne-claude don't use their last names, and that they always pay their workers. they keep sounding like they're trying to separate themselves from other artists, like the others are inferior compared to the magnificent christo and jeanne-claude. they're also too good to use e-mail, apparently, so i'm not too worried about them somehow finding out that i think they're lame. not that they would even care. they're much too advanced to care what a seventeen year old kid thinks anyways. i will now cut and paste a section of this lovely creation.

The Game of Errors: There are six errors in the following published short sentence:
"Christo wrapped some islands in Florida, off the coast of Miami in Key Biscayne with pink plastic."

1.-2. Christo and Jeanne-Claude never wrapped any Islands. They surrounded the islands. Most journalists do not understand the difference between wrapping and surrounding even though they should know that the United Kingdom is surrounded by water, it is not wrapped in water.

3. There were eleven islands surrounded, but because in two occasions 2 islands were surrounded together, there was a total of nine configurations on a span of seven miles.

4. Not off the coast. Off the coast would be in the Atlantic Ocean, east of Miami Beach.

5. It was in Biscayne Bay in the heart of the city of Miami, between Miami City and Miami Beach. Key Biscayne is miles away from there.

6. Not plastic - FABRIC, woven polypropylene is a man-made fiber, and is woven. Plastic usually refers to a film, not woven. For instance, women who wear nylon stockings are not wearing plastic stockings.

(all italics were done by them)

anyways, the whole thing annoyed me so much that i'm not doing them as my third artist. i'll try to find someone who doesn't think they're above everyone else.

"Christo was born in Bulgaria NOT IN SEVEN OTHER COUNTRIES"

isn't that nice.

Error: "The easy life of an artist"
Not quite so. Christo works an average of 17 hours a day – 7 days a week. Jeanne-Claude is a bit more lazy – only 12 to 13 hours a day. They do not take vacations.

the art of cake making

i love baking cakes. there's something great about it, greater than eating it. (although i like eating cake, too). it seems weird that all these random ingredients could come together to make something so tasty. i don't like using mixes, though. there's some weird preservative-ish taste to them. whenever i make chocolate cake, i use the recipe on the back of the cocoa can. it is as follows.

2 cups of sugar
1 and 3/4 cups of flour
3/4 cup of cocoa
1 and 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1 and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of salt

so now you mix all of those together, but you can't mix them tooooo much, or else the cake won't turn out as good (i don't know why this is true, but it is).

2 eggs
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup of vegetable oil
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

then you mix all these into it.
finally,
1 cup of boiling water

you have to be really careful when you pour in the boiling water, because the mixer will slosh it out if you're not careful, and you may suffer uncomfortable burns. your oven should be at 350 degrees. in my oven, it takes about 31 minutes for it to get done. the can says to wait ten minutes before you take the cakes out to cool, but i've found that twenty minutes is more accurate, and ensures that the cake comes out in one piece. you should wait about an hour for the cake to cool completely before you frost it, because if you frost while it's still hot, the frosting will become runny and gross.

okay, now it's frosting time. woo!

1 stick of butter (it needs to be really soft, so you should leave it out while you put the cake together. if it's not soft by then, microwave for about thirty seconds)
2/3 cup of cocoa

this is where the can doesn't give you enough information. you have to beat the cocoa and butter together until it's really smooth before you add other ingredients, or else the frosting will be weird and chunky and not attractive.

3 cups of powdered sugar
1/3 cup of milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla (it's really important not to forget this)

you add these to your smooth mixture, and then you have lovely chocolate frosting.

mmcake.

lego haircut and polka-dot dress

i was looking over my blog posts, and i realized what a huge nerd i am. this blog mainly consists of me talking about random stuff i read about on wikipedia. how thrilling!

since i have nothing to say, i'm going to ramble. not that i don't ramble all the time anyways, but whatever. i'm listening to seabear right now. they are nice. and they are from iceland. i had a slight obsession with iceland in middle school. i did a project on an icelandic bridge with my friend once, and there was one website on the internet about it. somehow we still got an a. i was listening to that one british band earlier hadouken! and i can't say i was a big fan. but somehow that got me to urban dictionary, which is always sure to make me laugh. i read the definition of an indie person. and it did indeed make me laugh. it confuses me why people always try to label people and fit in a particular stereotype. (i completely realize i called myself a nerd in the first sentence of this post.) but anyways. what if people just did what they wanted to, and didn't worry about whether or not they were cool? life seems to be more interesting like that. although people probably need stereotypes, since we have a need to catagorize stuff and all that sort of thing. oh, i ate guacamole for dinner. it's probably one of my favorite foods. for easter dinner, my mom wanted me to make sugar cookies, and they turned out pretty well. we went on a quest for an egg-shaped cookie cutter, and we couldn't find one. so i bought a butterfly shaped cutter instead. i need to learn some new synonyms for cheesy. i had my first stick shift lesson on saturday, and it went smoothly, for the most part. i drove somewhere today using stick. it was exciting, sort of. i'm bird/cat-sitting for this old couple for a week. they have a very grumpy orange-ish cat named ellie that likes to make odd noises. the bird is named handsome sam, and he also makes odd noises. i sat around their house for awhile, and noticed that the sound of music was on tv. i really like that movie. and it makes me cry everytime. most people i know either love that movie or hate it with a deep burning passion. when i think of hating something with a deep burning passion, i think of john steinbeck's books. i don't understand why people say he's a good writer. he sucks. i should end this on a positive note. i've been reading an andy goldsworthy book, and it's kind of interesting. i like life.

the earth is like a child that knows poems

easter. i have memories of running around on easter in fancy yellow dresses. today i wore a thick scarf. it's supposed to be a great spring day, matching the feeling of what we celebrate today. these past few weeks, i've been trying to be patient. i love snow, and all that, and i try to enjoy whatever comes at me. but today, i really wanted spring. so, after i bundled up for church, i grabbed a jar and a daisy. i decided that if spring wasn't going to come today, i would carry a little bit of spring around with me. it's probably a very cheesy thing to do, but i don't care. carrying that daisy around made me really happy, and i got a few wistful glances. a lot of other people wished they had a daisy to carry around, too.

the other day i was thinking about how weird clapping is. why do we make that sound when we're showing we like something? i find it kind of obnoxious and bizarre. apparently it's been around practically forever, and it was really common in ancient rome. there were degrees of approval that they could show, and i guess snapping meant you liked it even more than if you clapped. oh, and deaf people clap by waving their hands in the air.

fun fact- in indonesia, instead of rock, paper, scissors, it's earwig, human, elephant. as wikipedia says "the earwig is able to climb into the elephant's ear and drive it insane, while the human crushes the earwig and the elephant crushes the human."

put it in your pantry with your cupcakes

i would write this in times new roman if i was a decent person. but i'm not.

anyways, the other day i suddenly thought of the question "who invented times new roman font? was there just one guy that made it up?" apparently there is such a man. and his name is stanley morison. the font was first used in 1932. he also worked for a paper called the pelican press (a lovely name for a newspaper). If for some odd reason this topic is fascinating to you, feel free to read the book On Type Designs Past and Present: A Brief Introduction. Or perhaps The Typographic Book, 1450-1935: A Study of Fine Typography Through Five Centuries.

and here's to you, stanley morison
Jesus loves you more than you will know.

i've also been thinking about language lately. so of course, i consulted my good friend wikipedia. because of the english and spanish i know, i can communicate with approximately two billion people. that's a lot of people. a third of the entire world population. i suppose i know how to say things like "hello," and "you are purple" to a few more million people. but that hardly counts. there's not really a point to this at all. it just struck me as amazing that i could have a conversation with that many people.

nevermind

surprisingly, there isn't a lot of academic writing about the history of sandcastles. the only thing i could find is that egyptians probably made sand models of the pyramids before they built the real thing. hardly enough to write a paper about, however. the history of snowmen was also rather difficult to find. they've been around since the middle ages, according to some sources.



so i guess i won't be doing my paper concerning the history of these two things, which is kind of unfortunate, as this was the part that interested me the most. i think i'll probably focus more on the andy goldsworthy type of ephemeral art. i read about this environmental art, and they have a museum organization thing all about it, which was useful. i also found a website full of links to articles from art journals and such, specific to environmental art. i feel like i've made some progress. if i include any history, it will be the history of this environmental art movement. i'll also focus on the goals of the movement, and probably talk about the major contributors.

marcel proust and his questionnaire

the proust questionnaire. it's essentially a list of questions. marcel proust (his full name is Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust) made it popular, but it wasn't invented by him. according to the reliable source of wikipedia, it was popular at the time to answer questionnaires like these at fancy dinner parties and such. he answered them in such a different manner that it drew attention to himself, and i guess the trend caught on. npr did an interview with cookie monster using the questionnaire, and i watched it the other day on their website (+14 nerd points for caitlin). it takes about two minutes to get to the actual proust-ish part. anyways, some of proust's answers were way more interesting than mine would be. for example-

in what country would you like to live?
one where certain things that i want would be realized- and where feelings of tenderness would always be reciprocated
the quality you most like in a man?
feminine charm.
the quality you most like in a woman?
a man's virtues, and frankness in friendship.

there's this one question that was kind of interesting to think about. "if you died and came back as an object, what object would it be?" for some reason, the first thing that came to mind was a can opener. but that would definitely not be fun. maybe the pen of a really famous writer or something. or maybe the guitar of some great musician. a telescope, a camera, or a dollar bill.

fascinating fact- proust spent the last three years of his life in a cork-lined bedroom.

and now for a completely unrelated topic. someone was talking about karaoke the other day. the word karaoke comes from the two japanese words for "empty" and "orchestra." but i realized that i've only seen someone do karaoke once, and it was in honduras. we had just left this village, and we stopped at this old restaurant on the coast. i witnessed an old honduran man sing a spanish love song, and not particularly well. during the song, several other old men joined in with the singing, and it was unlike anything i have ever heard (perhaps not in a good way). i had completely forgotten about this event until about two days ago.

le ballon rouge, and other assortments

first of all, i would like to share the quote of the day:

"well, me and my detectives are much more well-educated."

second, i would like to share that i met a waitress today named pebble. i can safely say that, besides the cartoon character, i've never heard of someone named pebble.

spoiler- i'm basically about to give away the entire plot
i watched a movie yesterday called "the red balloon," or "le ballon rouge," as it was originally called. when i was younger i had a picture book version of this movie, and i always loved it. the other day my dad mentioned that he watched it for a film appreciation class in college, so i decided to watch it. it had hardly any words, so the visuals were even more interesting. throughout the movie, the boy (pascal), is accompanied by a red balloon he finds tied around a light pole. it's kind of a magical balloon, you might say, as it follows him around the city of paris. eventually some boys corral the balloon to a hill, and stone the balloon to its death. after the balloon dies, all the balloons of the city are suddenly unleashed, and fly to the boy. the movie ends with the boy floating away over paris, holding on to an enormous amount of balloons. i figured that the balloon was some sort of symbol for goodness, and i read later that some believe it's alluding to Jesus. (fun fact- at one point the balloon is kicked out of a church). there's something about this film that's really great though. go watch it.

sandcastles, maybe

i like sandcastles. i'm not sure why people make them. why don't they make snails or trains out of sand? for my research paper, i'm thinking i may do something related to ephemeral art. ephemeral art is art that isn't particularly permanent (like sandcastles). andy goldsworthy kind of fits into this because of his style of sculpture. environmental art in general is interesting. this isn't a controversial or important topic, but kind of fascinating. well, to me at least. and maybe that's all that matters. why do we always make castles of sand? or men made out of snow?

also, apparently there's a math equation to determine when the sun will set. i've never thought about that before.

cos(ωo) = (sin(a) - sin(φ)×sin(δ))/(cos(φ)×cos(δ))

a mars sunset. another thing i've never thought about before.

anyways, back to andy goldsworthy. i found some quotes that would be interesting to use. the documentary about him would also be useful.

"the stones are objects for contemplation: the more you look the more you become aware of the journey each stone has made."

"a snowball is simple, direct and familiar to most of us. i use this simplicity as a container for feelings and ideas that function on many levels."

"as with all my work, whether it's a leaf on a rock or ice on a rock, i'm trying to get beneath the surface appearance of things. working the surface of a stone is an attempt to understand the internal engery of the stone."

perhaps a bunch of nonsense, but interesting nonetheless.

octavius the great

i bought a siamese fighting fish about a week ago. i decided to buy it for deep symbolic reasons,(and by that i mean i liked how pretty its colors are). it's cambodian-coloured, meaning it has a lighter body with really bright fins. the most interesting thing i found about them, is that in the wild, betta fish usually don't become bright colored unless they're mad. i'm kind of glad i don't turn fuschia when i get mad. oh, and they puff out their gills if they're flirting. i wasn't aware that fish flirted. is that even a scientific term? anyways, i couldn't decide what to name it. it was between shostakovich (one of my favorite composers) and octavius (i mostly just like the name, however he was the father of augustus). i picked octavius because it's more fighting-ish sounding, (another deeply symbolic move on my part).

lately, octavius seems really lonely. he just kind of sits around, or whatever fish do. at first i felt guilty about putting him in a vase in my room. what right did i have to do that? what if he was happier in that mason jar at the pet store? i decided feeling guilty about a pet fish was borderline ridiculous, considering there's no way to give him a better life. but back to the loneliness. there's no way to really solve the problem. siamese fighting fish will eventually kill another male betta if they're sharing a tank. so he would be killing the one thing that could bring him happiness. and then it made me sad, because in some ways, i'm just like that little fish swimming around in a vase in my room.


“There isn't any symbolism. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know.”
-Ernest Hemingway

top ten reasons why physics is a waste of time

since few will ever read this, i feel like i'm justified to spend a few minutes complaining. if you have a problem with this, i suggest you click one of my links and leave quickly.


i hate physics with a burning passion. it's dumb, and no one can convince me otherwise. i will now make a list of reasons why i possess such a deep hatred for it.


1) i'm never going to use this is my life after high school. seriously. we had a question not too long ago "if the most powerful nuclear power plant heated up the arctic ocean for one thousand years, how many degrees warmer would the water be?" that makes me want to bang my head into a wall repeatedly.


2) my second reason is too mean to put up here, but know that it's another good reason to hate this class.


3) it's not even slightly fun. i'm okay with reading some stuff for classes. sometimes it might be interesting. but it's not fun to figure out how fast a child hit the ground after jumping from a second story window.


4) why would you ever want to measure something in joules? or newtons, for that matter. that just sounds dumb.


5) it's during second hour, and i always fall asleep. therefore, i associate falling asleep with physics, i think.


6) i want this to look like i have more logical reasons for hating this class than i actually do.

special topics in calamity research

1) since i previously posted about Andy Goldsworthy, he was the first thing that came to mind. i'd be interested to learn about his motivation for creating art, and how he started with his particular style.

2) i've been listening to this song named "swans" by a band named unkle bob lately. (unkle bob is a super lame name for a band, but whatever). i'm guessing it would be really hard to find information on it, but it would be interesting to me to find out the history of swans in society, the symbolism of them, and why they have the symbolism they do.

3) i really like e.e. cummings, and i've heard his style described as "avant-garde." i wouldn't mind reading more about avant-garde poetry and learning about the history, style, etc.


i may end up doing something completely unrelated to any of these topics, so we'll see.

an ecclesiastes of sorts

andy goldsworthy is an artist that makes amazing looking art out of nature. he doesn’t use any “unnatural” material in his art, so he’s not polluting when he just leaves his art places. i suppose you could describe his work as “organic.” i watched a documentary on him once, and it showed his process in making his installations. to make the sculpture in the picture to the left, he would have to sit there for hours, holding icicles together until they melded together and stayed in place. he had to go through several failures before he reached the finished product. after it was finally completed, the sun came out, and it lasted for only a few more minutes after that. i couldn’t help but wonder if he had just wasted five hours of his life creating something just to see it fall apart in front of his eyes. people create things all the time that don’t serve a particularly important purpose, and i suppose none of it will last forever. so was this “art” a complete waste of time? was the Mona Lisa a waste of time? is art a waste of time?