| lone wolf and cub |
[09 Feb 2008|02:53am] |
 Friends and I began watching the 6 part series Lone Wolf and Cub,* a Japanese Samurai film series from the early 70s that was based on a manga comic. It's interesting that I at one time marveled at modern film adaptations of comic books like Sin City for adopting cinematic features that emphasized it's comic roots. E.g.: the stylization of violence and action that uses the same framing as a comic. Little did I know it had all been done before in Lone Wolf and Cub.
I watched two of the films this evening. The first entitled Sword of Vengence and the second being Baby Cart at the River Styx. Both tell a tale of a disgraced expert Samurai traveling with his young son. He is hired for various tasks in each film, while the series has an overall story arc of the man trying to reclaim his honor, as well as his sons.
The fight scenes are generally interesting. A diversity of situations and attention to detail make every battle exciting. A favorite of mine was in the second film. Three expert Samurai our escorting a man through a desert. He realizes a trap lays in front of him and so he runs up and stabs into the sand. The camera stays on the blade, and you see blood slowly soak up through the sand and create a pool around the knife. After this, other men jump out of holes that they were hiding in and a battle ensues.
It's well worth a rent, especially if you like the comical gore and style of the Kill Bill films.
An odd English trailer for the film. In the films the child never does any narration.
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| Bridge Motel |
[17 Sep 2007|09:45pm] |
Seattle's notrious Bridge Motel is scheduled for demolition. For years it has been a haven to drug addicts, prostitutes, and murders, with your occasional ghost sighting thrown in for kicks. It's passing inspired a group of artists to take it over for one night and throw an recklessly extravagant party in its wake.
( further explanation and photos )
( and more photos... )
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| Guy Debord is so cool. |
[11 Sep 2007|01:27am] |
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| Karaoke |
[28 Jul 2007|11:41pm] |
Katy and I rented a Karaoke room for an hour on Jeju-do, a small island south of Korea. Our friends Bryan and E.J. were with us.
 
 
Karaoke has become something of a cultural tradition for most Koreans, and even if Koreans don't like Karaoke, they have usually done it enough times that the majority have become pretty good singers from all the practice. This makes for a slightly embarrassing time for us Americans who can't hold a tune.
Little did we know, the Karaoke room we rented had a service that would email us a handful of songs we had sung. E.J. did this without telling us, so here is a rather out-of-tune version of Total Eclipse of the Heart:
Matt & Katy trying to sing
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| South Korea |
[25 Jul 2007|10:10pm] |
Katy in Gyeongju South Korea_____
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| Screaming in Seoul |
[21 Jul 2007|03:26pm] |
 I'm not typing this from Seoul. I'm south in the quiet Korean town of Gyeongju. But last week I was visiting a friend in Korea's gigantic capital city. Katy and I were sleeping on his floor after an evening of drinking Korean beers and sweet potato alcohol.
My friend lives in a pretty quiet area of Sinchon, located in central Seoul. The streets always sound very calm after midnight. At 5:00am, just before people began to rise to get ready for work, Katy and I both heard screaming that was loud enough to wake us up.
Somewhere outside, in an American accent, came: "Help me! Help me! Someone Help me! Oh my god help me!"
It was loud and very fast, as if they were trying to get as many "help's" out as possible. It was paniced sounding, like someone screaming for their lives. It chilled my blood listening to it, and made my stomach sink immediately.
Katy and I woke up Eric and ran downstairs, but by the time we got to the street there was nobody except a few Korean guys sitting outside of a convenience store half a block down. We looked around a little but couldn't find anything.
I hate not having any closure on the situation. It makes me feel quite helpless.
--
(I'll post photos from Korea when I get back to the US)
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| Nothing in particular |
[02 May 2007|08:46pm] |
I have been neglectful of my journal as of late, I know. It's funny looking back on old entries. I used to feel so inspired to write about art, books, music, and the like, but nothing has intellectually gripped me recently. In place of that here is what has been going on in my life:
I graduated college, again. I did the whole ceremony a year ago, but came back to write an honors thesis. The thing ended up taking a great deal more time than I had anticipated, being about 90 pages when it was all said and done. I had never written something so long before and I feel as though I have accomplished something pretty substantial.
I am also in love with a beautiful young lady named Katy. She is graduating this week, with a B.A. in nursing. She already has a job at Harbor View Medical Center in Seattle. She starts this August, which means she and I will be finding a small apartment in Seattle this summer. I've never made this substantial of a move before. I'm extremely nervous but thankful that Katy will be there to do it with me. Still, questions linger: what will I do for a job? Will I just do construction? Will I follow through and pursue a MA degree? Will I be able to meet many people? Is this financially feasible?
In the mean time, I am still working and working a lot. I roofed 60 hours last week, which my body is punishing me for now. The job I was doing was a very large ranch home in Lewistown Montana. The owners ran an Elk farm and were extremely well off. They raise semi-domestic Elk and then bring people onto their land to shoot them for their large racks (16+ point buck). I was greeted every morning with a pile of decapitated Elk heads every morning from the garage as I walked up the ladder and got to work.
Thinking about it now, Seattle is looking pretty good.
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| Cancer |
[02 Feb 2007|03:04pm] |
Cancer
It is difficult to fathom a situation in which a newly discovered treatment for cancer, which has effectively killed cancer cells in laboratory rats, is not making news. Scientists from Alberta Canada have discovered a new application to the old drug Dichloroacetate (DCA): curing cancer.
 The drug has been used on humans for a long time and has already shown to have few significant side effects. Its application to the fight against cancer is particularly novel. You see, cancer grows because cells in a growth are starved of oxygen. They survive by switching to glycolysis to make energy instead. This makes mitochondria within the cell "switch off", making the cells cancerous and "immortal". Thus, the cells continue to replicate and the tumor grows.
That is where DCA comes in. The drug turns the mitochondria in the cancer cells back on, forcing the cell to cease glycolysis and use the mitochondria to make energy. This then forces the oxygen starved cancer cell to wither and die.
While this is certainly not a cure, it is an incredibly novel way of approaching cancer. Instead of chemotherapy, which results in the killing of both healthy and cancerous cells, the process within the cells are attacked, leaving the healthy cells intact.
But you probably haven't heard of DCA have you? It is only being briefly mentioned in a handful of science journals as well as a recent edition of The Economist. The problem is that this drug is so old it is not patented anymore. This makes the drug extremely cheap for cancer victims to obtain. But, lacking a patent means no pharmaceutical company will touch it. A cure for cancer that has few side effects, is safe for humans, and is extremely affordable for everyone is going to instead collect dust and remain unheard of thanks to pharmaceutical profit motivation.
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| Vegan Lasagna |
[30 Dec 2006|02:52pm] |
Vegan Lasagna
What you need:
- 12-16 lasagna noodles (depending on how many layers you want)
- 1 lb. fake ground beef (I prefer Gimme Lean)
- 1/2 Cup Chopped onion
- 16-20 oz. of your favorite spaghetti sauce
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon dried basil (crumbled)
- 2 cups of grated vegan mozzarela cheese (most health food stores sell lots of different kinds. get the kind you like the best)
- 1/2 cup vegan parmesan cheese (ditto to this)
- 1 1/2 cups vegan Ricotta cheese (see below. this is easy to make)
- A lasagna pan
( Read more... )
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| Autumn in Belgium |
[04 Nov 2006|02:45am] |
A year or two ago I was a fan of a Belgium emotive hardcore band called Yage (and i still am). One day I decided to leave a message in their guestbook (not their myspace page). I said something like how I was sad that they had broken up and even more sad that I couldn't ever find their album in music stores in Montana, but that from what I had heard I was a big fan.
A few weeks later I noticed a message in my inbox from a member in the band who said he appreciated the note and asked for my home address. A few weeks after that I had a hand made mixtape with what he felt was "the best of yage". I thought it was incredibly kind.
A few days ago I received another surprise email from him. Here is the bulk of it:
hey matt!
i dont know if you remember me but i was the belgian guy who made a yage-tape for you about one year ago. i sent it to you by mail. now, i need a little favor from you. read my mail..
before explaining i want to ask your help first! do you want to help me with some pictures of your environment??
this is the plan: i'm willing to make a concept for a little exhibtion at the end of december 2006 in a smaal town in belgium, kalmthout. we're organizing a fest overthere and i wanted to expose something myself on it. there will be music and film and also art-exhibits. so, here i come: my plan is to expose 'Autumn 2006' through the eyes of very different people on very different places in the world. so i'm writing you to ask to take some pictures for me.
love/liefs
frithjof beeldens
I told him that I didn't have a camera anymore, but I would try to borrow one. He asked for 10 photos, but the day I was able to borrow a camera the sky was overcast and kind of gloomy. Still, I thought I would show y'all what will be displayed as "autumn in montana" this december in Belgium:
( more photos under here )
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| Punishment |
[16 Oct 2006|10:18pm] |
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."
 I just finished watching the film Hard Candy, a film by a rather new director David Slade. The story runs that a young 14 year old girl allows herself to be seduced by a pedophile photographer, returning to his home with him following weeks of intimate online discussion. Once there, actress Hayley Stark proceeds to torture him, pretending to castrate him, shocking him with a stun gun, and eventually forcing him to commit suicide by hanging. The film was visually stunning, and the acting by both Stark and Jeff Kohlver was particularly impressive.
Still, I can't help but be completely disturbed by the director's glorification of violence to criminals. I am reminded of a news article a friend showed me a few months ago. He linked it to me with the lone subtitle "justice".
An inmate serving life in prison for raping and murdering a 10-year old girl named Katie was found with a tattoo across his forehead saying "Katie's Revenge". Presumably the inmate was held down while other prisoners did the work, resulting in the inmate to be removed from the general prison population.
 Numerous friends saw the article and simply stated that he deserved it, or that this was real justice. With Hard Candy this evening, I only rented it on a friends recommendation for being amazing. Honestly, I am beginning to feel alone in my disdain for the glorification of inhumane punishment to prisoners. How many times have we seen films depicting prisons as a place rape, or made comments correlating prison with forced sodomy. He have allowed this kind of treatment to be both normal and acceptable.
My thoughts turned to Foucault's historical study of western punishment immediately following the film. Punishment in the 17th century was marked by a punishment of the body--a theatrical display where revenge was able to be enacted through physical pain and torture. The rise of capitalism and the ideals therein resulted in a reassessment of the very nature of punishment. Instead of torturing and punishing the body, we punish the mind through solitary confinement, regimentation, discipline, etc.
But when did the Panopticon go blind? When did we feel the necessity to regress to 17th century standards of criminal care? We have brought back the gallows and guillotines in the form of newspapers outlets and Hollywood dramatizations. What are the implications of this breakdown on bourgeois morality, of which the panopticon was founded?
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| Cancer |
[11 Sep 2006|09:13pm] |
I worked a pretty long 11 hours today doing a massive tear-off on a flat roof. I was exhausted and couldn't wait to get home to take a relaxing bath. Right when I stepped in the door I checked my messages. The doctor called me and apparently I tested positive for skin cancer.
I have cancer... yeah.
I tried calling the office back but it had already closed for the evening. I'm going to go in tomorrow first thing and find out more. For those that are curious it is on my ear and I found it pretty early on, so I'm hoping it isn't too serious... but still, its fucking cancer! ya know?
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| Seattle part 2 |
[08 Sep 2006|04:38pm] |
Labor Day Weekend
In Seattle
Part 2 of 3
( photos )
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| Seattle part 1 |
[07 Sep 2006|11:12am] |
Labor Day Weekend
In Seattle
Part 1 of 3
( photos )
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| guns n' such |
[14 Aug 2006|01:37am] |
I was browsing through my friend Mckenzie's blog, who updates only slightly more often that myself, and I saw that she finally posted some photos from when we went shooting about a month or so ago. I successfully broke my camera when my band was touring. I can't exactly describe the events leading up to it breaking, but involved fireworks, a fire, and my friends speeding away down a highway mighty fast shortly thereafter. Needless to say, snapping photos myself has become difficult, so imma jack 'em from my friends when I can.
( Read more... )
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| A Small Update |
[03 Jun 2006|09:36pm] |
My life has been wonderful. So wonderful I don't even want to write about it. I'm so happy that it feels as though the effort that it would take to write about it would no doubt pop my bubble of contentment. Here are some photos instead:
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| I started a new blog |
[26 May 2006|01:04am] |
I got bored trying to come up with content for this blog, so I started a photoblog with my neighbor instead. it is called:
The Daily Scrape
enjoy.
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| pottery |
[10 May 2006|12:18am] |
I've mentioned in past posts my affinity for the Archie Bray here in Helena MT. It is a secret little ceramics community that has been located in my hometown for decades and has had some pretty big heavy weights in the ceramics world come work there. Everytime I have visited the Bray however, I've always kinda felt like an outsider looking in.
Luckily, a friend of mine was in town this evening. The army sent her to Helena's lovely Fort Harrison out here before she has to goto Iraq. As it turns out, her aunt is a resident artist out there and I finally got a taste of what goes on at the Bray behind the curtains. It was fun wandering around the different studios of the artists. I tried to snap a few photos with my shitty camera phone:
 
 
 Before you Helenans yell at me and tell me I no doubt could have gone and explored the Bray studios in the past if I wanted to because the folk out there are totally nice and awesome, let me tell you that I just always felt weird about it, as if I was invading their personal space.
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| tidbits |
[09 May 2006|02:35am] |
| I always felt that Judas got a bum deal in the bible. Recently I had a wonderful discussion with my father on the subject. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written decades after the death of Jesus and indicative of their sense of betrayal. They should be seen as being just as bias as their gnostic counterparts, though for significantly different reasons. What my father told me that I found so interesting was that there were tidbits of truths in the gospels that have been discovered by theologians recently. In particular the seating arrangement at the last supper. Tables back then were set up as giant U's so that servents could enter through the center a serve the guests. More significantly, the seating arrangement gave away party hierarchy. The person at the right was considered lowest on the totem--in this case Peter. The person on the left was considered the host. The person 2nd to the left was considered the guest of honor. In this case, Judas appeared as the guest of honor at the last supper. Many Christians have felt the need to distance the characters of Jesus and Judas to justify the great betrayal, but the truth seems to be that Jesus was great friends with Judas, considering he held the man in such high regard towards the very end. |
| | I graduated college. Sort of. I am done taking classes and I attended the graduation ceremony, but I plan on returning next semester to write an honors thesis so that I will have graduated magna cum laude instead of just "with distinction". I kept telling everybody that I hate ceremonies, but towards the end of it I couldn't help but smile. Later my father took me aside, told me how proud he was and started crying. |
Graduation is not the only reason I have to smile. Last night's text messages:
Me: Too much wine at the wine party... (I was pretty drunk while typing this)
Her: Oh ya did u and chris end up making out
Me: no, i'm afraid not... we just drank a lot of wine. BTW, I just got your other message and I miss not having you to cuddle with too.
Her: yeah that makes me kinda sad
Me: Me too. But you should be happy. You're going to africa! I have to stay in boring ol helena, without my favorite person in the world. What's a boy to do?
Her: U could hide in my suitcase or have a wonderful time in helena with your friends then we can cuddle and makeout a bunch when i get back.
Me: I think I'm too big for your suitcase(!). Promise we can cuddle when you get back? I miss you..... K, I need sleep. Night!
The next morning i saw the text that she had left after that:
Her: I promise... I think i'm falling 4 u matt
Her: Night
| | California has been a difficult place for my band to book shows this summer. If anybody out there has any contacts or hookups for venues or promoters in california, please let me know! | |
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