scrabble for one

what my friend rani said about damien rice in a recent conversation.

i know i've mentioned miranda july before, but, well, i'll mention her again.

i recently remembered one of her projects that touched me when i saw it for the first time, around last february. then i forgot about it until about a week ago and it's been entertaining me ever since.
in short, it's a website with various crazy and amusing assignments given by miranda july and harrell fletcher. anyone who reads the assignments is welcome to complete any of them and get their work displayed. the idea of all this is to lead people into new/fun/healing/thought-provoking experiences. i've been toying with the idea of doing an assignment or two. some of my favorites are:

Draw a constellation from someone's freckles

Write a press release about an everyday event.

Lipsync to shy neighbor's Garth Brooks cover. (ha!)

Make a portrait of your friend's desires.

Draw the news.

Write the phone call you wish you could have.

Take a flash photo under your bed.

Make a child's outfit in an adult size.

check it out. it might inspire you.

smog - to be of use

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RA meeting recap

what happens when you gather a bunch of strangers (who thought they had one thing in common) around a table with many bottles of red wine?
three things: 1. they have fun 2. they discover they have a lot more in common 3. a hangover the next morning.

how it all began: petya and i met a couple of weeks ago and had a really fun evening out blabbing about the ups and downs of coming back to bulgaria. later, she mentioned that in her blog, nicky said in a comment he returned to the mothership, too, and i added a half-serious comment that we should start a support circle for returnees. petya was the one to give my sarcastic comment a kick - she offered that we throw a returnees anonymous party. then elena and DJ (or is it denny?) got excited by the idea, everyone brought along more returnees (ani, emma, vessela, ivo, doriana)and, well, the rest is history...

there were lots of laughs, ordering bottle after bottle of red wine followed by maniacal-looking-in-the-eye toasts, and talking about anything and everything. some of the conversation topics included: sushi, throwing a sushi party in LIULIN(!), The Reason for having seven years of bad sex, socialism, whether emma looks like a whore or a transvestite or neither, julia kristeva, a wedding :), white snake, antidepressants, a sad boy george story, atheism, and, of course, the eternal "should i stay or should i go" debacle so commonly found in the minds of young bulgarians. all this followed by mad e-mail/phone number exchange.

somewhere amidst all the words and laughter and wine i somehow got chosen (well, okay, proclaimed myself) to be the future godmother of the wonderful kyle. i've got enough reasons to think me baptizing kyle will be the biggest travesty ever and god, will it be fun!

we finally had to leave the place around 2am (two hours after closing time) but i don't think anyone wanted to leave. at least i didn't.

not believing in herd type events, i didn't think this party would go so well. but it did. i met lots of cool people and they felt like friends. i can't wait to meet them again.

p.s. my cure for hangover: a painkiller, an upsarin c, a pot of coffee and beta band's "dog got a bone"
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what's yours?

camille

i've always thought youtube videos look ugly embedded in blogs, but i just couldn't resist.

this is camille, an ex-nouvelle vague vocalist. she released her amazing second solo album "le fil" last year (and i discovered her just yesterday), in which the only accompanying instruments used are the double bass and keyboards. incredibly, everything else on it is voice, clapping, and snapping of fingers.

check the live version of "ta douleur" out, it's spectacular.



how cool is this woman?

i took this photo almost two years ago when i went to see a circus troupe perform near the osaka harbor. this was the support act for the actual show, which was inspired by buster keaton (the show itself was completely magical. imagine 50 japanese men and women dressed like buster keaton, looking exactly alike, performing for two hours wearing his famous stone face and not using words. they made rhythm patterns out of syllables and their bodies moved to this rhythm.)
this woman was wearing a traditional kimono, as you can see, but the music was very different and not-japanese. there was something remotely burlesque about her act, something of a different era, something completely charming. she played with so much heart. this photo really doesn't even show one bit of it.

later, me and my friend sat and watched the open air performance in the drizzling rain. ships were passing in the horizon of the stage. we were wet and cold but we didn't mind a bit. it was pure magic.


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