Ali Artsy Life Update

I lost my sketchbook :(
I think I left it in the Hammer museum,
but they don’t have it in their lost and found.
What sucks is that I was about to scan in my drawings from it
to put online and now I cant.

Actually I’m more upset about loosing the book itself.
I bought it a few years ago at the Kinokuniya bookstore in S.F. Japan town
and since then haven’t been able to find it again anywhere.
(even at the same store when I visited S.F. a couple weeks ago)
It was made from this raw rice paper-ish paper
and was surprisingly light and took ink very well. Oh well…

On a more positive note,
I got a new monitor and color calibrator
so I can finally begin scanning in my backlog of drawings and photos.

I just finished the book “Gentlemen Of Space” by Ira Sheer.
And it was simply amazing.
I got inspired to read it after hearing the author read a short story
he had written about kids who found a man trapped in a well,
on This American Life. (Act Two)
It was by far the most powerful story I heard on that show,
and when it finished, I knew I had to read his book.

(I also read Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Murakami,
but would rather not speak about that literary abortion)

The new Radiohead album came out and it’s amazing.
I’m a little confused why it took four and a half years
to make 10 straight forward guitar rock songs,
but they are great non the less.
“Nude” and “All I Need” are my favorite tracks.
The lyrics for “All I Need” are incredible.

I saw Interpol and Múm, both shows were great.
Interpol was a little less then what I was expecting,
and Múm allot more. (My review of the Múm show)

I became obsessed with watching Malcolm X videos on you tube.
I was surprised to discover that he wasn’t at all
the violence advocating, Islamic fundamentalist
history has billed him as.
He was extremely well spoken,
and while not in agreement with Dr. Martin Luther King
about how to handle black inequality,
his arguments and philosophies
were just as well thought out and sensible as Kings.
Those two leaders were really the Yings to each other Yangs.
These videos show this compare/contrast very well:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=K9m4xFfF6v8

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MwKIUMbi9Jk

I feel that Kings message was to the society as a whole,
and was directed towards full and equal integration.

While Malcolm X’s message was more cynical of that possibility
(or more realistic depending on your stance)
and was geared more specifically to blacks,
about how they can learn to help themselves
without reliance or expectation of whites to give them anything.

And to encourage a sense of pride,
and willingness to defend and empower themselves.
That white people will only learn to be more covert and subliminal
with the way they racially structure society,
(50 years later you could argue he was completely right)
that equality will come about only through the actions of blacks, not whites.

I also finally started reading through the instruction manual
for my old super 8 film camera I got recently,
and almost cried at how amazing it is.
This camera can do everything I could ever want,
and is so incredibly well designed.
I have to call a couple of labs
to see if they will support my O.C.D. control freak desires
(film stocks, processing, scanning, hi-rez output etc.).
I can’t wait to shoot footage with it in the Yucatan in November!