Macro Mondays - "Tech"

A reading, yea?

Here's a fun little thing, on the nightmare of English pronunciation. It's the first part, and I may or may not do the second half at a later date. It looks quite daunting, really.

Most of the time, I've seen British (or RP) renditions of this poem. I wanted to try my hand at the American/Canadian/Standard English.

By Gerald Nost Trenité:



The Chaos

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

First snow of December!

A little tune to celebrate this:

Macro Mondays are back! - "Threads"

Macro Mondays....already on hiatus

Sorry people,

Despite my good intentions, my desktop decided to blow up on me. This happened sometime after downloading a no-cd patch for Warcraft III, wouldn't you know.

So, while my pictures are all still intact, I do not have access to them, and my laptop does not currently have the picture-processing capability of my desktop. I'll be leeching off the school's internet tomorrow in hopes to remedy to this problem.

Macro Mondays!

So, Friday I received my Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro. I think I've never been more excited over a photography prospect. So with that excitement and good intentions in mind, I think I'll have Mondays become Macro Mondays on my blog. How does that sound? I think it might incite me to update more often.

So, here's to start it off, my very crappy test shots of things lying around the house:

Oh it's possible.

Terra Naomi!

She's the greatest.

Check out her music here.

Also, the video that started it all!

Oneshot 3

So! I finally managed to find a new way to record. Unfortunately there is still quite a bit of noise so I apologize for that. It'll have to do for now. Tried a more classical approach to chord progression, this time around.

Snow anyone?

Should I put out a pumpkin or hang Christmas lights? Because I'm very confused now.

Shhh.

I finally have them.

My dream headphones.





PS. See how it rolls up in a ball? Gosh.

Les 7 doigts de la main - La Vie

I went to see "La Vie" by Les 7 doigts de la main (The 7 Fingers) tonight, at La Tohu.

More than circus, it was theatrical. And not theatrical in the way that Cirque du Soleil sees it, with big Mardi Gras-like costumes and masks; extravagant and surreal stages. No, this was raw, and beautiful.

The setting draws the audience into what appears to be a glimpse into the purgatory, after death. Then starts the telling of the stories of a few individuals who died, punctuated by beautiful, sorrowful aerial contortions, hilarious delirium, sensual and tense tango, brought to life by incredibly engaging characters.

At the end, all guests were invited to congregate around the stage, where a session of Q&A with the 7 artists (now with an additional live DJ who also has his own number), themselves the creators of the show.

I had always heard of Les 7 doigts de la main. But tonight was the first time I go see one of their shows. And I would go again: tomorrow, if I could. So should you.

Dreams of the Rainbow

Moonlost

Tonight I ran after the moon, but never found it.

Death and Decay

The acrid stench was thick in the air, acidic and slightly metallic. Everywhere I looked, glaucous eyes stared back, expressionless yet haunting. The lifeless eyeballs, though devoid of animation, were full of intent. They were oppressing, in their silence, their mute accusations. The carcasses lay there exposed for all to see, raw and their pale transluscent skin shone under the harsh lights, seeming aglow with a gleam of their own. The bodies were stacked neatly in rows, piling up high; no reverence was made to these emptied vessels.

Death.

Death everywhere. Death overwhelming. Everywhere I looked, everywhere I walked, in the air, death. I felt suffocated for the first time. I felt my breathing catch once, twice. This never happened before, not here. I struggled to keep my composure, for I had nowhere to go, nowhere to escape to. I closed my eyes, tried to shut out the images, to chase away the horrors but my mind, with morbid self-cruelty conjured the scenes again and again. When I thought I had finally reached a blankness in my thoughts, the stench assailed me, and my stomach threatened to heave. I opened my eyes in panic, looked around for somewhere to go.

“Here you go sir, that will be six dollars and fifty cents.”

I slapped a ten on the counter, grabbed my two tilapias and ran to fresh air.

Portrait.

Collage

And such.

Sit Still.

Okay, so. Painting didn't go as hoped. It's not a catastrophic failure, but it's still pretty bad. The only object which resembles itself is the apple.

1st Painting!

So I recently started my Intro to Studio Arts course for the summer, and am absolutely hyped up. We're only touching on contour drawing with a sharpie for now, but it has excited me so much that I finally decided to try to paint something. I'm not sure what to make of it.

This person inspired me to paint, and I urge you to take a look at her blog. You will be AMAZED. This painting is dedicated to her.

Trans Fats

The man shoves a french fry into his mouth in a swift, precise movement. Just prior to that, he dipped it expertly with just the right amount of ketchup from the typical condiment paper cup. The moment the fry disappears off in his mouth, fatally crushed and digested, the man picks up another fry and repeats the same sequence, and again. The movements are mechanical and precise, and hypnotizingly constant in rhythm. The man does not seem to really taste the fries, as each one gets gobbled up immediately after the previous one and is chewed on only twice before the next fry takes its place.

I have been staring at this man for a while now, my horridly bland coffee left untouched in front of me. It has gone cold already, but I could care less. This man fascinates me. He’s reading a newspaper as he eats his fries. His burger is still in its wrapping, and I wonder if he will finish his fries before getting started on it.

He suddenly breaks his routine, one beat after swallowing a fry, to take a sip from his drink. It seems to be a cola or some other dark-colored beverage, judging from what is getting sucked up through the white plastic straw. One beat later, he resumes his fry-eating pace, right on the third beat of what I am certain is a four-beat tempo.

I don’t know whether I am disgusted or not.

This man before me seems to epitomize the very essence of the average city man with his eating habit. The thoughtless, mechanical feeding; the seeming lack of any sort of enjoyment for the food; the equal lack of savoring: the lifelessness. Eating for fuel, eating because it’s what he should be doing right now.

I decide that I am disgusted.

Very soon, the stack of fries comes to an end, and he starts peeling the wrapping off the burger. Unexpectedly, he attacks the sandwich mercilessly, his jaw straining for that first murderous bite. You can see mandibular bone protuberances on the side of his jaw, angry veins on his temple, muscles taut in his neck. The urban predator.

Trans fats, cholesterol, junk food. Everyone knows of the dangers, at least vaguely, yet no one really seems to care. Decline to eat unhealthy for fear of trans fats, and you receive a disdainful eyeroll. I believe in the dangers. In fact, I would not be surprised if this man were to topple over in a fit of acute hypercholesterolemia. There is no wood here for me to knock on.

In what seems like less than a minute, the man wolfs down the burger. He then crumples the wrapper, and takes a long sip of his drink. He sits there for a few more seconds, staring off into space, drinking. Then he stands up, slings his bag over one shoulder, grabs the tray and walks over to the nearest garbage can. I decide to follow him.

This sudden fascination for this man that has gripped me is unexplainable. I have no words for it. It simply is a compulsion, an impulse to see the story to its end. What end this story may have, I do not know, nor could imagine. It’s not even interesting. He’s not even interesting. I mull over these thoughts as I grab my own backpack and stand up. I glance at the coffee, alone on the table. I decide to end its miserable existence and throw it in the garbage. I hurry outside, having lost the fast food predator. I step out onto the sidewalk, and spot the man as he’s about to cross the intersection, a little further down the street. I pull the second strap of my backpack over my left shoulder, and jog off towards the street corner. The man melts into the crowd as the pedestrian signal lights up.

Suddenly there’s a piercing screech, screams, a muted thump immediately followed by a loud crash, then silence. Panicked screams erupt, chaos. I had stopped running, but now I dash towards the commotion. I try to push my way through the massing crowd, to see, to join these vultures. What? What? Who?

Lying halfway on the sidewalk, one leg unnaturally bent, is the burger-wolfing man. His face is down against the pavement, the back of his head visibly cracked open and a massive pool of crimson beneath him, on him, from him is steadily growing larger. A car is stopped about three meters away from him, windshield cracked, red webbings. I stare for a while, and no one seems to react. I don’t know what to think.

Trans fats really are dangerous, after all.

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PS. I really did just write that. What, what.

My mind comes unfringed

Montreal Fringe Festival. Be there.

http://www.montrealfringe.ca/

Glass Door

Mindless Thoughts

Here's another oneshot. I decided to go with a little less structure, and putting as little process into it as possible. Not sure if I'm liking it or not.

Home-bound.

The Vietnamese use a specific verb to identify the action of going to Vietnam. They use "to return". Actually, more specifically, it holds the connotation of "returning home" to Vietnam. This is not only used by the Vietnamese diaspora, but also by the natives.

I had always wondered what it would feel like to return to Vietnam for the first time. I've always had strong inclinations towards my cultural roots, and always felt a tug in the direction of my home country. When I first got out of the airport, I didn't feel much of anything. It was when we started driving through the city that I realized: I'm home. Granted, it was night time and I couldn't see much, but it felt right and it felt like home, strangely.

I came home for the first time.

Foodism

Can't mention Vietnam without its amazing culinary repertoire. Sadly, I didn't have my camera for the majority of the trip, so most of the food I tried did not have their picture taken.

Charging. Clear! BZZT!

Time to revive my blog, I think.

So, back from Vietnam. Sadly, I only had my camera for the last week, so pictures are few. Here are some of them.

Vietnaming

Blog-posting will be on hiatus for a little while.

Foodism: Leméac

So, last night I discovered a nice restaurant: Leméac, on Laurier, Montréal. It is qualified as being a Café Bistro, but the menu seems to be a good representation of a good French restaurant. And without further ado and rambling, gratuitous Foodism:

Papaya and tomato gaspacho

House smoked salmon

Grilled calamari with zucchini and lemon zest

Tartare de boeuf (Sorry, vegetarians)

Duck leg confit with roasted fingerling potatoes and salad

The obligatory baguette bread