The Grammys

Whoever directed the Grammys must’ve been doing cocainebecause the only word that I can think to describe it is weird.  I don’t have a habit of watching the Grammys every year, so I wouldn’t be able to tell you if this strangeness is an anomaly or not, but it definitely was weird.   Probably the weirdest parts of the show were hearing that Kendrik Lamar and Imagine Dragons were doing a collaboration, along with a performance of Daft Punk and Stevie Wonder and Pharell Williams together,  and another of the Macklemore team (Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, Mary Lambert), with Queen Latifa and Madonna.

Upon hearing each of these, I looked up to the ceiling and thought, “Why?”  and then I questioned my motives for watching this awards ceremony at all.  These groups seemed like they had been picked from a hat and would likely end in embarrassment for the performers and agony for the audience.

I was so wrong.

Somehow these messes turned out to be genuinely enjoyable.  The beat and energy was uplifting so literally that everyone got out of their seats.  The first of these people though was Taylor Swift doing her gangster moves in an unironic fashion. You could just see the faces of the people behind her  thinking My God Taylor, please stop embarrassing  yourself.  But other than that, the performances blew me away.

And then there’s my girl, Lorde.  Her appearance at the Grammys just reinforced my absolute fascination with her. Lorde’s performance was quirky but riveting.  She sang her popular song, “Royals” (which by the way earned her two Grammys) and her live vocals were so beautiful I had to sing along with her.  I am so proud of that little kiwi!

There were a few stars that I believe fell a little flat.  Pink, for example, flew around above the crowd doing an acrobatic routine whilst failing to even pretend that she isn’t lip-syncing.  Then she burst into a whole dance-ish thing in which she held up a man with the pure power of her quadricep.  It was a great trick and all, but I couldn’t help but wonder if she was only doing it to showcase her strength or if she thought it really worked with the song.  Then Nate Ruess came on stage and the two sang their duet.  Nate was adorable.  It seemed he wasn’t quite sure what to do so he just kinda stomped his leg every few seconds.

I didn’t like the piano performances.  Beautiful, but really, a bit boring.

And then there was the duet of Sheryl Crow and Sara Bareilles.  Two of the mushiest artists in music sang together.  It felt like a commercial for a kids’ show.

My big dislike of the Grammys is their discrimination towards alternative music, a love of mine.  Yes, there is a category reserved for alternative albums, but that is just one category, and even then many of the alternative songs of this year are not represented.  Modern Vampires of the City  won, but that makes sense, so I’ll leave it alone, but what about all the other great songs?  This was a GREAT year for alternative music and artists besides the big ones, you know like Lorde and Vampire Weekend, deserve to be commended for their work.  How about Bastille?  Capital Cities?  CHVRCHES, maybe?  It seems like every other genre of music except alternative is well represented at the Grammys.

That’s all for now.  Hope you enjoyed my rant!  Feel free to comment below!

How To Be John Green

I know it’s been a while and I haven’t been really good at writing so much, but I’m here!  And as I speak it is the day after Christmas.  The holiday season is usually when writers whip out the whole “Christmas isn’t about presents” fiasco and I whip out my “let’s stop acting like everyone celebrates Christmas” one because for some reason, I focus on that.  But, today I want to write about someone very near and dear to my heart, John Green.

For those of you who don’t know who John Green is, he is only THE MOST AMAZING HUMAN ON EARTH!!  And really, if you haven’t heard of him by now, you should come up from under that rock.  The thing about John Green is that he is just about the king for geeks and bookworms and nerds everywhere.  My fellow nerdfighter friends (FYI that word was just underlined red, so let’s word to get “nerd fighters” added to the dictionary) and I could talk about John Green for hours, days, years, millennia.  That’s how amazing he is.

John Green is the writer of several books including The Fault in our Stars which arrives in theaters in June (!!!!).  He is also the author of Paper Towns, the book I’m reading now, and it is so amazingly fantastic; please do not spoil the ending.  In addition to this, John Green is the co-creater of the vlogbrother channel on Youtube.  I have spent late nights watching these ridiculously awesome videos.  From this channel have spawned other channels like The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and Crash Course.  I wildly recommend them.  John Green is also the brother to Hank Green, a quirky scientist and fellow Youtuber.  He is next to John on my list of favorite people ever.

So the question is, How can I be more like John Green?  Because you know, he is one of the top human beings on the planet.  To figure this out, you need to look at what makes John Green so awesome.  If you read his books and watch his videos, I think you’ll come to the same conclusion I have: John Green is so amazing because he is so relatable. His characters aren’t perfect, but have sympathetic qualities.  He tells embarrassing stories of his past so that others may use it as advice.  So to be like John Green, you have to do this.  You need to be able to connect with people.  You need to know how to make them feel better.  And this is not a trait that everyone has.  It is why John Green has earned such recognition.  But work on it, because people like this are held in the highest regard in my mind and really are the ones who make changes.

Another way to be like John Green: stop worrying about how people perceive you.  John Green is dorky, but that’s how he became famous.  And honestly, just as every high school movie ever has taught you, as soon as you let yourself go, you become happier.

Also READ!  How do you think John became so smart?

That’s all for now, but let me know what you think in the doobly-doo (comments).

John Green, if you ever read this, I’m not as creepy as I sound, but I love you!

Lorde

Sorry, I’ve been gone  a little while.  The last few weeks might possibly have been the busiest of my whole life thus far, but I won’t bore you with the details of that; I have another subject that I need to write about.

Lorde.

By now, you have probably heard of her, the brilliant song-writing kiwi (New Zealander, not the fruit).  I am obsessed with her.

Lorde’s most famous piece of music is Royals.  In the song she explains that she and her friends don’t need money to be happy. Then there’s Team, which is new, and Tennis Court.  Here’s the chorus because I especially love it:

Baby, be the class clown

I’ll be the beauty queen in tears

It’s a new art form showing people how little we care

We’re so happy, even though we’re smiling out of fear

Let’s go down to the tennis court and talk it up like yeah

Breathtaking, isn’t it?

After falling in love with all of her songs, I decided to check out Lorde’s music videos.  At first, I was a little confused.  Tennis Court just showed her on a dark set lip syncing only with the ominous “yeah”‘s in the song.  In the music video for Royals, all we saw was normal teenagers doing underwhelming things.  Why would someone put in the effort for such an insignificant video? I wondered, but then I got it.  Flashiness would have destroyed what Lorde is trying to get across.  She knows that she doesn’t need fancy costumes or choreography to make her songs mean something. They do that on their own.

Did I mention she’s only sixteen?  And she writes all of her songs?  When an artist like this is finally recognized by millions upon millions of people, I can’t help but do a nice fist pump because an for the first time in awhile an actual talented person is topping charts.  No more Blurred Lines or We Can’t Stop.

Oh, and have you seen her hair?  It is magnificent, and that’s coming from someone who generally does not care about hair.  Her hair is huge, but controlled,  long, but not hippie-like, and brown, yet not mud-colored.  Lorde’s hair is what I think my hair looks like until I look in the mirror and see that it’s given me three extra inches of height and has pieces of food stuck in it.

I love everything about Lorde and as long as she keeps making music, I’ll keep buying it.

Religion

Religion is a controversial topic and I’ll try my best to not offend anyone, but no promises.  If you have a different opinion, feel free to leave a comment.

I was raised Roman Catholic, but these last few years, I’ve been drifting away from my beliefs.  I don’t know why this is, but it probably has to do with the fact that I disagree with almost everything the Church tries to teach.  I don’t believe that gay marriage is sinful.  I believe that whether or not to have an abortion is a right given to the impregnated woman.  Most of all, I believe that my virtues are mine, and not to be decided by a man and his followers who lived over two millennia ago.

I don’t think that we should do good just because we’ll be rewarded (heaven), and not do bad because we’ll be punished (hell).  I personally think this is selfish.  When doing something good, your focus should be on helping that other person or trying to improve the world, not on what you’ll get out of the deal.

It detest when people say “God does everything for a reason” because really, God , leads instances of war, natural disasters, sicknesses because its all part of his plan?  What sick God does that?  Which leads me to my next point, when all of these things happens, where is God?  When he sees his people suffering, what does he do?  Nothing. No, instead he just judges them when it’s their time to die like he’s so deserving of that job.

One of the commandments is “Keep the Sabbath day holy”; I some point I knew which one, maybe the third?  But my point is that going to church cannot make you a better person.  There are rapists, murders, elephant thieves, whatever, that go to church.  Does that make them better than me because I don’t?  I don’t think it’s right to believe that going to church automatically makes you a good person.

The scariest thing though is that God might not be real.  I’m afraid of just disappearing when I die.  Total and complete oblivion.

Then I’m afraid that God is real and I’m going to Hell for thinking this way.

I do have respect for people who are able to believe so deeply in their religions.  If only I could have faith in such abstract things, I might be more at peace.  So, kudos, it must be great being grounded in your virtues.

Sorry if that sounded sarcastic; I really don’t mean it to.

Despite all this, I still pray to God each night, begging him to give me a sign that my beliefs from my childhood weren’t false.  I don’t know; maybe someday I’ll get my answer or maybe I’ll spend the rest of my life asking questions.  Or maybe I’ll just find peace somewhere in between.

Good luck with your respective religions.  I hope that I haven’t made you hate me for challenging any doctrines that are a part of your religion.  Like I mentioned earlier, feel free to comment and voice your opinion on the topic.

Spiders

I am writing this because just five minutes ago, I had a little freak out because I saw a spider in the bathroom.  I even took a picture of it because I didn’t know spiders that size even lived in my portion of the country.  Afterwards, I made the mistake of searching what types of spiders live near me.  As it turns out, spiders bigger than that one in the bathroom reside just outside.  Blehh.  Then to make things worse, I read a comment on this website said that a study from the University of Ohio reported that you are never more than five feet from a spider at any given time.  Double blehh.  Right now, I’m more scared than I have been in awhile, and that’s saying something because I watch and read a lot of freaky stuff.  Every little thing I feel, whether it be a tickle from my hair or a breeze from the vent, I have another little freak out to make sure that some creature isn’t crawling up my neck.

So thanks anonymous commenter for that.

I’ve come up with a rule for myself: if they’re outside, leave them alone, but if they’re inside, free game.  So spiders beware!  If you come one step into my living quarters, I will suck you up with a vacuum that will tear apart your eight legged body!  I already have to five spiders in the last five days.

I’d like to apologize to entomologists reading this because you may be getting ready to write a scornful comment about the importance of spiders to the ecosystem, and I know this; I took biology class, but those things creep me out.  This also raises another question: do entomologists study spiders?  The informal definition of entomologist is the studier of insects ( Webster’s would probably give you a much more intricate definition).  The spider is not an insect, it’s an arachnid.  And if entomologists do study spiders, where does it stop?  Entomologists can’t seriously study, say scorpions right?  That’s certainly straying from insects.

But I wandering from my point, if there even is one.  Spiders are creepy little things.  Not all are poisonous or bite or whatever it is spiders do, but it doesn’t take much for that little bugger to make my heart stop and slowly tiptoe to my vacuum cleaner.  I really hate being a girly stereotype, so it pains me to say that spiders do truly give me the heebie jeebies.

Believe what you want about spiders and try to change my mind, but when it comes to these sinister creatures, I will not be a pacifist as long as it is in my house.

Anyways, end of rant.

A good artist h…

A good artist has less time than ideas.

Martin Kippenberger

Why Do We Make Art?

After years and years of drawing, painting, and photographing I finally came across this question in a deep debate after visiting the Chicago Institute of Art (mentioned in previous post).  Why do we make art?  Seems like a simple question, right?  Though, after actually thinking about it for awhile, I was stumped; there is no one answer that makes more sense than another.

Back in the day, it is thought that  cavemen used art for communication (doesn’t that sound poetic?  art to communicate?).  Art is also used for remembrance, a to keep a record of what a person looks like (photographs, portraits).  For some people art is beauty, maybe a way to make someone smile.  Or for decoration, a way of brightening a room.  Maybe art is meant to make us think or to make a statement.  Maybe it’s the artist’s way of finding a new and better reality.  But how can you pick just one?

There is a quote that I read once by Edgar Degas, he said, “Art is not what you see, but what you can make others see.”  And this makes you think, What can I make others see?

It’s weird though; art is kind of like a cancer that inhibits you and spreads throughout your body until it controls you.  Then you have no power.   There is this force inside you that must convey it’s messages, emotions, images.  It eats at you until the art is finished and perfect, and even then it keeps you practicing and practicing in hopes that you will one day be as good at drawing/painting/ or whatever else as your hero is.  This in itself is pretty beautiful.  So maybe that’s why we make art, because we’d go crazy if we didn’t.

Sorry for getting all dramatic there.

Even after writing this post, I’m not sure what my goal is when I draw, paint, or photograph, or any other form of art for that matter is.  It seems to change depending on my mood, I guess.  If I’m feeling elated, usually my creation will try and be aesthetically pleasing above all things, but if I’m in an upset or indignant mood, I will try to create something that gives understanding to a cause or gives the viewer something to think about.  Art is a crazy and abstract thing.  To some it’s beauty and to others it’s words given a canvas.    Edward Hopper said, “If I could say it all in words, I would have no reason to paint.” so maybe I need to stop writing here and get creating instead, because, maybe Mr. Hopper is right; art is the words that you can’t say, or don’t know how to, so you visualize them instead, and there are those lucky few who can do that; the ones who make us think by showing us,  and not telling us.

But, you see, the question, “What is art?” may be forever unanswerable question like, What is the meaning of life? or What if there were no hypothetical situations?  There are many different definitions for it but whatever those are, they are frivolous and inaccurate because art is so inexplainable that it can’t be kept in the square box that is a definition.

I should probably go since I promised to stop writing a paragraph and a half ago, so goodbye and happy drawing/painting/or whatever else (bonus points to whomever can come up with a brilliant word for that)!

I got a quote or two from this website below.  I will most likely be posting a few of these too because I love them so much.

http://www.artpromotivate.com/2012/09/famous-inspirational-art-quotes.html

I’m Back!

I’ve been gone a while, and sorry if any of you depended on my posts to get through the day.  That would be awesome if you did, but I kind of doubt that happened.  I was away in Chicago, one of the most amazing cities in the world.  The food was delicious.  The entertainment was well, entraining.  And Chicagoans (if that’s the right demonym) as a whole are very delightful.  I even got to see the bean!  If I could live in that bean, I would, no hesitation.  My bed could go on that little curved part in the middle.  The best part was probably the museums.  We only had time to go to two of the major ones, but what we saw was beautiful and awe-inspiring.  First, the art museum.  Though a bit of a pricey museum, it is definitely worth it.  There was this interesting exhibit on impressionist paintings and fashion.  It had look alike dresses from the models in the paintings!  So cool!  Besides the pretentious, grey-haired lady who gave me the stink eye when I started coughing discreetly in my arm, I enjoyed the exhibit.  But, as  you may know from my About Me page, my favorite paintings are not impressionist, but modern and of the surrealist type.  There were several Picasso, Dalí, and Magritte paintings.  And you must of heard of Magritte’s Treachery of Images, right?  It’s that pipe one that says “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” and it was there, though it looks different then the famous one and Wikipedia names Los Angeles as the home of the painting, so I don’t know what to say about that.  The caption did say that it was a René Magritte, so…

The Museum of Science and Industry was also something that I would see again.  Though science isn’t really my strong suit, I heard the history of the place and I was sold.  It was one of the few (or only?) remaining building from the 1893 World Fair in Chicago.  And what a beautiful building it was!  It was a perfect blend of new and old with a huge marble dome ceiling and colorful light displays.  Since this was our first time in Chicago and we didn’t know when we’d be back, we decided to go all out and go to a movie and two tours.  The movie was on space junk and was more interesting than it sounds.  The first tour was of a coal mine and was very cool.  I learned so much, for example, did you know that the state of Illinois is powered 50% by coal?  Our tour guide, Miner Mark was very charismatic and seemed to know a lot as far as mining goes.  The second tour was of the German U-505 U-boat.  Again, our tour guide was both outgoing and intelligent.  The U-boat is the only U-boat to be captured in combat and the capture is considered instrumental in the defeat of the Nazis.  I don’t consider myself a very scientific person, but I actually loved this museum.  The whole thing is very hands on, which is the best type of learning.  Did I mention it’s huge!  Like if massive and humongous had a baby, this museum would be their twenty pound infant.  I was there for six hours and I don’t think I even saw half of the exhibits!

The thing I love best about big cities is that you are never more than a few blocks from where you need to go, and if that’s not the case, subways and buses and the “L” (El?) exist.  I need to get a job in a big city just so that I can live over a Mcdonald’s and have sweet, sweet dreams fueled by the smell of deep fried potatoes.

It’s kinda fun …

It’s kinda fun to do the impossible.

Walt Disney

How I Met Your Mother

The last eight years, I have not been following the sitcom, How I met Your Mother, but thanks to a certain website that lets its subscribers watch reruns of shows and movies, I have been able to jump onto that part of television culture.  I like the show.  I think it’s brilliantly crafted and the way it is told is very unique, however, I do have a problem with it.  Or rather two.  I don’t like half of the main characters, specifically Robin and Ted.  First, Robin.  I think she’s boring, stubborn, and fake.  However, there are times when I find her a smidge okay, like when she tells a funny joke, but that is very rarely.

I have an even problem with Ted.  He’s a whiner, and a loud one at that.  I mean, seriously, I know you have to be loud for the camera, but Ted, you’re waking the martians!  I also hate how pretentious and know-it-ally (I know it’s not a word, but just go with it) he can be.  And his hair.  A running gag is how much time he spends on his hair, but it looks awful.  Sorry, that was shallow and mean, but I needed to get it out of my system.  Also, it’s weird how much he looks like Jimmy Fallon, right?

When Robin and Ted decided to move to Argentina in that one episode, I was like, “Yes!  This show will be awesome now!”  But then they didn’t, so it wasn’t.

As for the other characters, I have no problem with them, in fact, I kinda like them.

Lily.  She is fun and sweet.  She is also artistic and paints pretty amazing paintings.  I also like that she isn’t perfect.  Unlike her friend, Robin, Lily has real faults that aren’t “being too pretty makes my life hard”.  Real problems makes Lily easier to relate to and better to watch.

Barney.  Barney is hilarious.  He makes me laugh the most out of all the characters.  I like his magic tricks and I like his suit.  I have no problems with him.

Marshall.  My favorite thing about Marshall is that he is simultaneously the smartest and dumbest character on the show.  I don’t know how, but it works.

Sorry.  I know a lot of you like Robin and Ted, but I really can’t stand them.  That’s why I wrote this, because I’ve had trouble finding someone who feels the same way.  Bye!