SPRING BREAK (UPDATE #10)

Hi everyone. I just wanted to make a quick post today. I just got back from a global issues conference that was held at Lewis University, and I have to say, I was impressed with how the staff and the panelists handled the event. Besides that I just wanted to say that my spring break has started, so expect there to be a much more consistent flow of work. Below you will find some pictures from the event. I have to go now, so I will see you all later.

P.E.N.T.C.I.

500 DAYS: PART 2

500 days of summer pt.2

 CLICK HERE FOR PART 1

Continuing…

The overall themes I saw throughout the movie were love, the unreliability of human emotion, the overall unreliable world, the idea of conformity and the dangers of it. There are also many homages as well.

The first theme is the theme of love. This one is pretty obvious because that’s the genre of the film. The movie opens up with a denouncement of love to the director’s former love, which kind of goes with the idea not necessarily of pro love, but anti-love. This movie is really an exhibit showing the different forms of love. The movie does a good job of showing the love between the man and his friends, their experiences and mishaps. Then we are shown the love Tom’s boss has for the company in holding meetings and being worried for his employees. We are shown the physical aspect of love in the alluding to sexual intercourse as the two characters laid in bed talking the morning after. That’s just the idea this movie puts in your head. The idea that love, memory, and overall emotion is more than just the use of dead words or dead actions, and that’s what really separates this movie from all other romances.

Another theme is the vulnerability of human emotion. We know Summer at first doesn’t believe in human emotion, but Tom can’t help but have feelings for her. The movie does a great job of showing how hopeless Tom can be with romance, even from youth. I mean, the guy watched The Graduate as a boy so what do you expect! Tom just falls head over heels for this Summer chick at such a fast pace, the film directly shows how much of a loser this guy kind of was at the beginning of the film. As for Summer, she may seem like a rock hard person from the outside, but as the film progresses we are revealed the true defenselessness of her feelings because she isn’t willing to show her true opinion on things. She’s very closed off from the rest of the society. It’s very interesting to see.

The last theme that was very evident throughout the film was the idea of conformity and the overall dangers of it. Summer is given a taste to what conformity brings to all that explore the concept, and that is the sort of false hope that ties into being one. Conformity is a process by which a person’s attitudes and beliefs become influenced by other people. It can be something that happens quite openly like peer pressure or it can be a more subtle influence that takes place over a number of years. The result is that you end up behaving like everybody else. That is why it is called being a sheep most of the time. Summer throws logic out the window. She leaves Tom because of her rebellious attitude, but because she was exposed to Tom’s original conformism, she winded up looking for someone else because Tom was out of the picture. Tom, on the other hand, became an anti-conformist after his relationship with Summer. The tables turned, and when we find out about Summer’s engagement and eventual wedding, we the audience cannot help but feel bad for Tom. Tom has now become this shell that Summer once was, until the end. We see that Tom starts once again with a woman, inviting her for a cup of coffee. The cycle starts again.

In terms of what I liked about this film, I liked the camera work, the narration added to both the drama and the comedy. My favorite scene is probably the one where they put reality and the fantasy side by side, I thought that was a stroke of pure genius and innovation. I loved the fact that they put a lot of “The Graduate” references. They added to the themes in the film. I highly recommend this film to anyone looking for more than a cliché romantic comedy.

I give this film a strong 8.8/10

IF YOU WANT TO SUGGEST A FILM FOR ME TO WATCH AND TALK ABOUT, LEAVE IT IN THE COMMENTS OR E-MAIL ME. SORRY FOR THE WAIT.

                                                P.E.N.T.C.I.

LOCAL ART AND COMIC CON

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Me Talking. Let me send a huge thank you to everyone who showed up at the Comic Con. I had a fun time with it and I hope Schaumberg hosts again next year because they really are some nice people. A SPECIAL thank you to those select few who actually came up to say hello, you guys are pretty cool for that. Below are some photos I and my sister took. I really like supporting the local artists because I feel it’s important to network. A sort of they scratch my back and I scratch theirs type of thing. Well, I got to go, thanks for reading and hope to see you all next time.

Me with a human statue

My sister with the same man

Me waiting for my photo shoot 

                                             

A sample

My sister trying to be surprised 

Me and Kyle Bice (www.kylebice.net)

My sister and local artist Stephanie Stanga (www.stephstanga.com)

Me with Stephanie 

Some of Stephanie's pencil work

Stanga's "Hero Dance party"

"Batter Up"

A selfie on the road

Me with Scott Casper (castlegreyhawk.blogspot.com)

                                                                    P.E.N.T.C.I

Comic Con Info

Hello everyone. I'm currently sick and am really not in the mood to bring out anything, so the following is some information regarding Comic Con and when I will be there. Hope to see you all there.

I will be at the Comic Con event from 1-4 p.m., Saturday, March 21 at the Schaumburg Township District Library, 130 S. Roselle Rd., Schaumburg, Illinois. I will be going around, enjoying the events and meeting with some authors. I would love to see you guys there, and if you see me, don't be afraid to say hello! For more information regarding the event, click here. Remember, this is not like the Comic Con in San Diego.


                                                             P.E.N.T.C.I.

BIG NEWS

   Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Me Talking. I am writing you today with some rather exciting news. For one, I will be at the Comic Con in Schaumburg, Illinois on Saturday, March 21^st. There will be more info coming soon in the times and dates, but I know you are all as excited as I am. In other forms of business, there are official spouts of spring in my city, which is making me very excited. I like watching the transition between winters, the brief springs, and summer, it makes me animated, well, more animated than usual. I don’t know, I feel like there is a grand sadness stirring.

THE MEMORY OF NOTHING IMPORTANT

              Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Me Talking.  I remember once I was at a party. The party was being held inside a small party hall on the north side of Chicago, although the name I don’t remember at the time. Upon entering the event I was taken aback by the amount of people there. I mean we are talking about 100+ people stuffed into this small party floor. The music was grand, and the people were abnormal. Now, I was 15 at the time being accompanied by my twin sister. We enjoyed ourselves very much and left at about one or so. I thought the party was great. A couple of days passed, and the memory soon faded away. Recently, I was walking down the hallway on a cold February morning, when my name was called out. I turned, and before me stood a plain, short white girl. I could have sworn I had never met the girl in my life, so you can understand the sort of shock I was in. I stood there as she approached me, and we spoke:

Me: Yes?

Her: you don’t remember me?

Me: (pause for a moment) I’m afraid I don’t.

Her: you were at *****’s party weren’t you?

Me: Yeah, I remember that.

Her: Yeah, how are you?

Me: Well, I’m kinda good. You know, around.

Her: That’s good. Well, I’ll see you around then.

The bell rang, so I was late to my class. I have nothing wrong with people stopping for a quick chat with me in the hallway, but I was questioning what the girl was planning on happening. Did she expect some kind of friendship to arise from this one experience? I was polite, I mean, what was the point of making her feel bad? I have not seen that girl since, and no one seems to know her, which led me to question my mental state itself. Isn’t that sort of crazy? If I were to tell someone about this experience I know they wouldn’t believe me. Now that I noticed, I never received the girl’s name! It’s odd to be a part of something, and not be a part of it at the same time. I’m really writing this post to sort of assure myself that this experience happened. Funny, isn’t it? That’s why I feel especially sore when I study the schizophrenics and the Alzheimer’s disease victims. I can’t imagine the idea of forgetting something about myself or someone whom I have spent a long time with. I really can’t. Whenever I think of that experience now, I like to think of how strong we really are in our memory. When I pass, how can one really be sure that your name or your face or even if it was just the way you walked or a moment when your voice was heard? It’s interesting to think about those things sometimes.

                                                               P.E.N.T.C.I.

RECREATIONAL POST #4: COFFEE

 

Unlike many other drinks such as tea or milk, to me, coffee has a culture to it. When you put the grounds in a cup and add the water, or put the beans in a cappuccino maker, you are adding to the rich tradition of many before you. The history of coffee goes at least as far back as the 13th century, with a number of reports and legends surrounding its first use. The native (undomesticated) origin of coffee is thought to have been in East Africa, specifically from Ethiopia. It may have been first cultivated by Arabs in the 14th century, but the earliest substantiated evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears to have been in the middle of the 15th century, in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen. By the 16th century, it had reached the rest of the Middle East, Persia, Turkey and northern Africa. Coffee then spread to the Balkans, Italy and to the rest of Europe, to Indonesia and then to America. There are several legendary accounts of the origin of the drink itself. One account involves the Yemenite Sufi mystic Ghothul Akbar Nooruddin Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili. When traveling in Ethiopia, the legend goes, he observed birds of unusual vitality, and, upon trying the berries that the birds had been eating, experienced the same vitality. Other accounts attribute the discovery of coffee to Sheik Abou'l Hasan Schadheli's disciple, Omar. According to the ancient chronicle (preserved in the Abd-Al-Kadir manuscript), Omar, who was known for his ability to cure the sick through prayer, was once exiled from Mocha to a desert cave near Ousab. Starving, Omar chewed berries from nearby shrubbery, but found them to be bitter. He tried roasting the beans to improve the flavor, but they became hard. He then tried boiling them to soften the bean, which resulted in a fragrant brown liquid. Upon drinking the liquid Omar was revitalized and sustained for days. As stories of this "miracle drug" reached Mocha, Omar was asked to return and was made a saint. Since the people’s first encounter, no matter which one actually happened, it was apparent that the drink itself would stick around, rather from its energy-boosting effects, or its rich bitter taste. Although the origin of the first coffee house is a little unclear, the world's first recorded historic coffee house, Kiva Han, was reputedly opened in Constantinople (Istanbul). Shemsi of Damascus and Hekem of Aleppo, are generally acknowledged as our first recorded coffee house proprietors having opened one in Talchtacalah, Constantinople in 1555. Many believe the real first coffeehouse in Europe opened in Vienna in 1683 after the Battle of Vienna, by using supplies from the spoils obtained after defeating the Turks. The officer who received the coffee beans, Polish military officer of Ukrainian origin Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, opened the coffee house and helped popularize the custom of adding sugar and milk to the coffee. Mélange is the typical Viennese coffee, which comes mixed with hot foamed milk and a glass of water. Over time the coffee bean made its way to the Americas, but the way it got there isn’t the best of tales. What’s that? You want to hear the story of how coffee got to the Americas? Okay, but brace yourselves! Gabriel de Clieu brought coffee seedlings to Martinique in the Caribbean around 1720. Those sprouts flourished and 50 years later there were 18,680 coffee trees in Martinique enabling the spread of coffee cultivation to Haiti, Mexico and other islands of the Caribbean. Unfortunately, these plantations were kept up by the slaves, many of them being worked to death, so yeah it was pretty sad. The territory of Santo Domingo (now Hispaniola, comprising Haiti and the Dominican Republic) saw coffee cultivated from 1734, and by 1788 it supplied half the world's coffee. Coffee had a major influence on the geography of Latin America. The French colonial plantations relied heavily on African slave laborers. However, the dreadful conditions that the slaves worked in on coffee plantations were a factor in the soon-to-follow Haitian Revolution. The coffee industry never fully recovered there. Between 1511 and 1886 over one million Africans were kidnapped and taken to Cuba to be sold as slaves. Production and selling of sugar was the first use of slave labor there, but the cultivation of coffee played an equally important role in the history of slavery in Cuba. Its cultivation has been connected to the slave trade, slave labor, and harsh conditions on Cuban plantations. Coffee entered the Caribbean in the early eighteenth century. When coffee first reached Cuba, farmers welcomed it due to minimal land and machinery requirements for its cultivation. Slaveholding increased with the expansion of coffee production. but the practice was enforced by prison-like conditions that created unrest and inevitable rebellions against the wealthy plantation owners. Coffee production in Cuba did not last as long as in other countries due to the competition with Brazilian coffee. I guess whenever I drink a cup of coffee, no matter if it’s in an empty café or the ecstatic atmosphere of my home, I really do take a moment to taste whether it may be the strong, full flavor of a Columbian roast or a semi-sweet taste of a cappuccino. I admire the color, the rich smell, and the beautiful tranquility that sits in front of me some early mornings, and late evenings. I drank my first, small cup when I was six. I remember we just got home from an Easter mass and my mother gave me a small amount if Taster’s Choice with some French vanilla cream, and I was taken aback by the strong, bittersweet taste, and I have been in love with the drink since. I wrote my first short play on a cup of coffee back in the eighth grade. My parents drank coffee from an early age. My father would tell me about the mornings next to his mother, watching her grind the beans, and I really love that. Coffee brings us together, but has a silent isolation in the experience. I sometimes just want a cup by myself, to reflect, and I have the ability to do that. So, to all you people who keep hating on the drink, understand where we coffee lovers are coming from. Sure, I’m against child labor, and slavery, and I stay away from the companies that do that. I love the drink, and so should you.

Sources:

ncausa.org

selamta.net

independent.co.uk

THANK YOU FOR READING, DON’T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE BY E-MAIL, AND I WILL SEE YOU ALL LATER

                                                            P.E.N.T.C.I.

My Q&A With Spencer Tweedy

The following is an interview that took place between me and Spencer Tweedy. He is an extremely talented artist. I recommend you all check out his blog here. Special thanks to Spencer and his patience with his time.

1.      When was the point in your life where you realized you wanted to blog?

I started blogging when I was about twelve years old, because I was super into technology and just thought it might be fun.

2.      What kind of support did you receive when you started out blogging?

The only people that knew about it were my family, but eventually, fans of my dad’s band, Wilco, started to discover it.

3.      At what age did you begin to play music?

I began playing music when I was very, very young. I think there are pictures of me playing drums when I was about two years old!

4.      What were some of the hardships you experienced when you were getting your blog off the ground?

Well, it’s really difficult to find a readership. But the most you can do is just try to satisfy yourself… By writing about things you care about. I also had a lot of fun experimenting with web design because of my blog.

5.      How important do you think music is at a young age?

I think it’s extremely important. Having an outlet in music—or any form of art—is a really healthy thing for people to have, especially when they’re young and still learning how to articulate what they feel. I think that if more people played music, the world would be a lot better.

6.      Do you have a specific place in Chicago you like to go for inspiration?

Not really! I spend most of my time at home.

7.      What’s your favorite restaurant in Chicago (*cough cough* Gibson’s Steakhouse)?

My favorite restaurant in Chicago is Superdawg. Best hot dogs in the city!

8.      How do you handle the haters?

Well… I think empathy goes a long way with the people you disagree with. I think that a lot of times—not every time, but a lot of times—you can neutralize a vicious person by imagining why they might have an anger and just speaking to them with rationality. It’s a lot harder for people to attack you when you show them you care.

9.      Is there a specific album or song you go to when thinking of a post or a new riff?

I love jangly music from the 1960s.

10.  How are you able to balance out your music, blog, and school?

I graduated school last year, so that has taken a big portion of my workload off! But while I was in school, I just tried to make routines of finishing my homework that allowed me enough time to work on the other stuff I wanted to do, like music and writing. Sometimes it’s not possible; sometimes it is.

11.  Do you plan on continuing your work in film?

I don’t think so. I like visual art, but I think I only plan on doing photography or film when it’s convenient or to document my life.

12.  What advice could you give to those bloggers out there who are just starting out?

Don’t focus on building popularity. I spent a lot of time pointlessly worrying about my visitor/pageview count but that doesn’t really matter! I know it’s exciting to watch it grow—it’s really cool to think that other people are seeing your work—and there’s nothing wrong with wanting attention for it. But don’t let it get in the way of just making stuff.

13.  What’s one thing you love about Chicago?

I love that it has a great music scene, it’s on Lake Michigan, it’s in the Midwest. Oops, that’s three things.

14.  What’s one thing you don’t really like about Chicago?

The deep winter is brutal.

15.  What is your favorite film?

Maybe Inglorious Basterds, or Paper Moon.

16.  Who is your favorite musician?

My favorite musicians are the Davies brothers of the band The Kinks.

17.  What do you think is in store for Mr. Tweedy? (That’s you)

I’ll be going to college, and I hope to make some more music!