[Un]Official Bob Ross Day

"Today
Is Bob Ross Day
Even though he's dead
We still love him anyway..."

The first few lines to the Bob Ross Day Song. My dear friends Ella and Severie (see ode a couple posts below) and I decided to establish a day of appreciation for the late Bob Ross about....4 or 5 years ago. I'm not really sure. But, one day we got to talking about how much we loved to watch Bob Ross and what a fantastic man he was, and then it was his day. We drew pictures and posted posters everywhere announcing the unoffically declared holiday. We spread his face and his happy portraits up and down the halls of our school, and shared the wonders of his life. Did you know he didn't just paint, but he also filmed wildlife shots? Mostly of happy little squirrels? He lived in Alaska for a long time and wanted everyone to believe they could be an artist.

I can't remember why we chose January 26th, but I do remember there being math involved.

Regardless, here are some wise words from this joy-emanating man:

"We don't make mistakes; we just have happy little accidents."

God bless you, Bob Ross.

special project

more to come later

only part of a person at the moment

so my classes this semester are fascinating. i really do love them. especially my postcolonial class and my class on buddhism. prepare for all of the following posts to be my favorite exerpts from readings.

like this one:
(salman rushdie)
"...human beings do not perceive things whole; we are not gods but wounded creatures, cracked lenses, capable of only fractured perceptions. Partial beings, in all the senses of that phrase. Meaning is a shaky edifice we build out of scraps, dogmas, childhood injuries, newspaper articles, chance remarks, old films, small victories, people hated, people loved; perhaps it is because of our sense of what is the case is constructed from such inadequate materials that we defend it so fiercely, even to the death."

lately i've been feeling a bit more partial, depending on that chance as if it weren't chance, but something to be counted on, cursing my fractured perceptions, and praying for the whole. in my buddhism class, we talk about change a lot. nothing ever stays. the "shaky edifice" of meaning is our downfall -- our attachment to the things we cannot keep forever is what makes us so unhappy. i can see what sorts of things i can separate from, but it is those little things that make meaning that i never want to lose, precisely because they do change. i want to revel in my senses and in loving people -- lovely, changing, loose, revolving, evolving, silly people. i want these things while i can have them -- and i'm so grateful for the hope that i don't ever have to lose them.

from discourse on colonialism

best read of the day. (an exerpt from a short piece by aime cesaire for my postcolonial lit/film course)

"I hear the storm. They talk to me about progress, about "achievemnts," diseases cured, improved standards of living.
I am talking about societies drained of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated, religions smashed, magnificent artistic creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out.
They throw facts at my head, statistics, mileages of roads, canals, and railroad tracks.
I am talking about thousands of men sacrificed to the Congo-Ocean. I am talking about those who, as I write this, are digging the harbor of Abidjan by hand. I am talking about millions of men torn from their gods, their land, their habits, their life -- from life, from the dance, from wisdom.
I am talking about millions of men in whom fear has been cunningly instilled, who have been taught to have an inferiority complex, to tremble, kneel, despair, and behave like flunkeys.
They dazzle me with the tonnage of cotton or cocoa that has been exported, the acreage that has been planted with olive trees or grapevines.
I am talking about natural economies that have been disrupted -- harmonius and viable economies adapted to the indigenous populatoin -- about food crops destroyed, malnutrition permanently introduced, agricultural development oriented soley toward the benefit of the metropolitan countries, about the looting of products, the looting of raw materials.
They pride themeslves on abuses eliminated....They talk to me about civilization, I talk about proletarianization and mystification...
Every day that passes, every denial of justice, every beating by the police, every demand of the workers that is drowned in blood, every scandal that is hushed up, every punitive expedition, every police van, every gendarme, and every militiaman, brings home to us the value of our old societies....."

all this talk about mr.button

You know, I came in very excited to see this movie. And I was disappointed.

I didn't like it. At all.

I thought the characters were boring and quite the opposite of captivating. Daisy was just kinda crazy and weird and Benjamin (as handsome as Brad Pitt is) was bland.

I thought the acting was okay -- Brad Pitt was quite amazing, but the rest of the cast was really so/so.

The concept was creative and I did like that the movie pushed some taboos, but really?

It didn't do anything for me.

I didn't feel any more or less anything. I wasn't attached to the characters or what happened to them.

Nothing particularly impressed me about it -- other than the whole aging and deaging effects.
I kinda felt like the bad guy when we left the theatre; everyone else was ranting about how wonderful it was...blah blah blah. Oh well.

Anybody else see it yet?

home video

hey guys! it's christmas time! from erika ann on Vimeo.

so this is the new year

"Today really didn't feel any different...You know, with the new year and all...I always wanted to be in Times Square on New Year's Eve. Times Square looks just like any other place -- but not on New Year's Eve. I suppose I'll never make it there, and they'll just keep on without me."

Talking with Gram tonight made me both a little melancholy and a little frightened. If there's any great epiphany I've had this past year, it's how terrified I am to grow old.

Part of me is tempted to retrace this past year, to analyze my highs and lows, to chart my growth. But you know what? What's done is done.

Today is Thursday. A day past Wednesday and one before Friday. There is only one Thursday each week. Today's Thursday also happens to be the only Thursday, January 1, 2009 there ever was or ever will be.

What else is there to say about it?

Oh, and today also just happens to be the start of a new year. So, get to it, and make it a good one.