a metaphor on life, a thought on el olio wolof

i was playing a dvd in one of my classes. we're talking about narrative, and telling their story, as well as seeing the relation to the stories around them. anyway, i'm using the movie the joy luck club, recommended by my wife (i also like using it because amy tan has fresno connections and i like showing the students that they aren't limited in any way by being here). in fact, i'd never actually watched the whole movie before i showed it a few terms ago. anyway, back to this story. we were watching the movie in class, and the dvd kept skipping. this was really frustrating, and it seemed that each time the class was back into the story, it would skip a little or pause. a few times i took the disc out and tried to wipe off any smudges or dirt. and even when it didn't seem like there were any more smudges, it still was skipping. so, i started thinking, maybe it's the player and not the disc. when i went home, i tried it out, and it played perfectly, all the way through.

this made me think about life, and the difficulties that we face. sometimes, nothing feels right. sometimes it seems like everything we do, all the attempts to right our lives, to fix things, just don't help. is it possible to live in the wrong "player"? this one we're in is misreading us for some reason, thinks that it should jump here when we say, 'no, it's fine, keep playing.'

now, i'm not saying this about my own life. honestly, i'm pretty sure i'm where i should be, where i want to be. but i was just thinking that maybe there are people out there that have just been stuck in the wrong set up. what do you think? it's not a super profound thought, just something bouncing around in my head.

can i make a similar metaphor about the jack on my headphones? i have some really nice headphones that i received as a gift (birthday or Xmas, i forget). and i love them. but, they don't fit in the deep well of the iphone. so, i've had to use the iphone earbuds that constantly fall out of my ear. the other ones worked great on the ipod but not on the iphone. but a remedy exists, a friend of mine who has these same earphones, and iphone, told me about modifying the input on the earphones. you just have to shave the housing on the cord a little. he had already done it on his, or maybe he had done it on a part used to connect to the car stereo.

finally, i went to the post art hop show @ tokyo garden. i was a little tired, and actually left just before rademacher came on. maybe it was the heat that sapped my energy. or maybe it was that rademacher never seems to be coming on before 1, who knows. don't mistake that for criticism. i love rademacher, and have enjoyed seeing them so frequently. when they make it big, i'll treasure the memories of seeing them in a packed, sweaty tokyo garden. but anyway, i did see el olio wolof. these guys are magnificent. i've seen them now probably five or six times and each time i am more impressed with the quality of their music, their showmanship and energy, just everything. last night they had the crowd in their hands in such an amazing way. people moving, singing along, dancing, just beautiful. when i saw them here i compared them to a pentecostal tim burton carnival, and i think it still works (if you click on that link, you can actually see some low quality videos i did of them). i easily dropped the $5 for their tour demo. it's got some of the songs from their upcoming cd, and some others. it's not quite the same as actually seeing them, but it's good, and it will hold me over each time i need a fix of el olio, until i see them live again. wow, that sounds obsessive. anyway, i can't wait until both rademacher and el olio wolof get their full length albums out. i know that they've both been on the verge of releasing them, so i hope it's soon.

oooh, one last thing. i sold another painting yesterday. one wednesday, when we were doing our set up for our art hop show, a lady came through the door wanting to leave a note for the artist that had shown last month. she wanted to pick up one of the paintings as a gift. i then identified myself as that artist. we planned a time that we could meet on thursday (i didn't have the painting there). so, yesterday, the deal was done. goodbye, asparagus.