"Someday I'll show you a place: a monster-free Tokyo!"

I feel like maybe I should share with you some of the treasures that I have been discovering recently. Some of them are similar, but all of them are excellent.

1) http://www.wefeelfine.org/

This site is an interactive Flash programme that looks for the phrase "I feel" in blogs worldwide and grabs the sentence it's in, so that you can see how people all across the Internet are feeling. Put it on "Murmurs" in the lower left to simply have a scrolling list of the sentences rather than the trippy-yet-cool floating-dot interface. And, even better, when the sentence scrolls by, clicking on it opens up the post that it's from! This is definitely for those of you who cherish moments of connexion with complete strangers.

2) http://www.postsecret.blogspot.com

PostSecret is probably one of the best things I've ever heard of. It is a fascinating mix between community art, sociological research and psychological research/therapy. The idea is: you take a postcard. You write a secret on it that you have never told anyone else and decorate it however you want. You mail it in to that address and they will post certain ones (he can't post /all/ of them) on the blog every Sunday. The most unfortunate part about this whole thing is that he doesn't keep an archive! That makes me sad, but fortunately everyone on the Internet saves their favorites to disc so doing a Google Image Search on "Postsecret" yields thousands of results. They also have at least one book out. You can get it on Amazon (I don't think I will, but still...) As with above, this is awesome for people who love communal art, psychology and feeling moments of connexion with complete strangers. It is always a jolt when you read your own secret that you've never told someone, in another person's handwriting, on a postcard you've never seen before.

3) Graffiti Art

One of the websites I found starts with this line: "If you want an audience--Start a fight." That's kind of what graffiti is all about. I have a thing for public art. We just don't have any anymore! All of our art is in museums, and the only art that still speaks are the old pieces that (due to their universality) still have relevence to "the human condition". Most modern art exists only in museums and says /nothing/. It is seen only by art critics, who then either create meaning for it, or glory in its lack of meaning. Anyways, enough ranting on that. My point is that I love it when graffiti transcends the simple "Kilroy wuz here" taggers and moves in to fill up that slot of poignant, meaningful, colorful art that is lacking in our everyday life. I think that this piece says it best, and is in fact currently my desktop. So, yeah. I have been searching the Internet for cool graffiti art, with success. I should learn how to use spray-paint. I dunno... I'm not advocating vandalism... Just, yeah.

So anyways, that's what I've been doing with my time recently, instead of posting on LiveJournal. My last day of work is Wednesday, which is going to be a half-day anyways because I need to get a chip in my tooth filled. So, the end approaches. It somehow seems too soon. I am pretty blitzed, so I think I'll go to bed. Soon...

"And our footsteps will be light, the future will be bright!"

-L