hungry + angry = hangry, a common affliction of the eleanor

The desert is the environment of revelation, genetically and psychologically alien, sensorily austere, esthetically abstract, historically inimical… its forms are bold and suggestive. The mind is beset by light and space, the kinesthetic novelty of aridity, high temperature, and wind. The desert sky is encircling, majestic, terrible. In other habitats, the rim of sky above the horizontal is broken or obscured; here, together with the overhead portion, it is infinitely vaster than that of rolling countryside and forest lands…. In an unobstructed sky the clouds seem more massive, sometimes grandly reflecting the earth’s curvature on their concave undersides. The angularity of desert landforms imparts a monumental architecture to the clouds as well as to the land…
To the desert go prophets and hermits; through deserts go pilgrims and exiles. Here the leaders of the great religions have sought the therapeutic and spiritual values of retreat, not to escape but to find reality.
-Paul Shepard

who am I
and what do I want to be or create,
what do I want to feel,
what do I want to see,
what do I truly value?

http://youtu.be/cVeI1lymAMI

hehehe

Tea Party vs. Occupy

i thought this was interesting until i saw how absurd some of these things were

"New York is not owned by anyone. That's what makes an interesting city. It is a city of how many stories — thousands, hundreds of stories, millions of stories. That’s the beauty of working here.”
--Steve McQueen

http://youtu.be/_TBd-UCwVAY

starfish be scary

http://youtu.be/LMhBuSBemRk

oh dear...

alexander mcqueen

lobsters, corgis, halloween

don't you want to run your fingers through his hair???

expectations/reality

from the LA times, book trailers

On Location: book publishers borrowing a page from Hollywood

November 8, 2011 | 3:53 pm

55

6

In a sewer beneath Las Vegas, a lethal vixen named Abigail is locked in a mortal struggle with an outlaw cowboy with ties to Greek gods.

The scene, recently filmed over three days on a sound stage in Glendale, wasn't for a new sci-fi TV series or movie.

It was for a 30-second commercial spot aired on Google TV to promote “Retribution,” the latest chapter in the popular paranormal book series “Dark Hunter” from bestselling author Sherrilyn Kenyon.

Such commercials, or so-called book trailers, have become increasingly common as publishers look for novel ways to market their bestsellers at a time when fewer people are buying physical copies of books and chains such as Borders Group are shutting down.

Publishers, which are reducing author advances and slashing print runs, have begun to spend big money to produce full-blown dramatizations that bring book characters to life. That’s a far cry from only a few years ago when publishers promoted their books using commercials containing a few stock photos and voice-over narration.

The trend has created a niche business for local filmmaker Chris Roth, a former creative advertising designer. In March, he and his brother, Steve, and two other partners launched the Los Angeles company the Other House, which specializes in producing commercials for books such as “Retribution.”

The company has produced more than 50 spots for publishing giants Random House and St. Martin's Press, most of them shot locally, Roth said. The 15- to 30-second spots air on cable channels such as Syfy and MTV, Internet outlets including Google TV and Hulu, online gaming sites and at movie theaters.

“We’re doing four or five of these a month and there are no signs of this letting up,’’ said Roth. “The budgets just keep growing.”

Roth, a 31-year-old native of Los Angeles, studied illustration at Parsons School of Design in New York City. Before launching his company, he worked for several years as a freelance visual effects artist and animator for WCBS-TV in New York, where he produced advertising spots for clients including GE and Cadillac.

Roth’s book trailers cost as much as $50,000 each and involve a full complement of actors, computer-generated effects, costumes and set designs with the high production values of a movie trailer.

The book trailers, which often appear on social media sites, help to spur book sales, in much the same way movie trailers help market Hollywood films, said Nancy Trypuc, senior director for creative services at St. Martin’s Press.

“It’s a way for us to try to excite people prior to the book’s publication,’’ said Trypuc. “We find, especially in the paranormal space, that fans are really attracted to things like this.”

Trailers Roth produced for “Retribution” and for Kenyon’s latest book, “The Guardian,” generated 125,000 and 280,000 views on You Tube, respectively, Trypuc said.

The Other House has so far produced nine commercials for Kenyon, including several from the author’s “Dark Hunter” and “The League” series. Trailers for the latter aired on the Syfy channel.

“It gives readers a chance to visualize what the characters look like and a sense of the tone of the book,’’ said Kenyon, who recently signed a deal with Amber Entertainment to develop and produce films, television and webisodes based on her books. “When it’s done well, it really does get people who wouldn’t normally even go to a book store to say, ‘I might be interested in this.’”

Roth’s company has also produced trailers for books by other authors, including George R.R. Martin, author of “A Dance with Dragons,” part of the book series that inspired the HBO series “A Game of Thrones"; and P.C. and Kristin Cast, a mother-daughter team who wrote the hit paranormal teen romance “Destined.” The trailer for "Destined," which was filmed in L.A. with a crew of 30, will be shown in movie theaters as part of the pre-show for the Nov. 18 movie release of “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn.”

The Other House also has produced several trailers for Dean Koontz, bestselling author of titles including “Lost Souls” and “A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog.” The company's most recent Koontz project involved helping create an interactive website for his upcoming supernatural suspense novel “77 Shadow Street.”

Most of the company’s book trailers are filmed on a sound stage in Glendale, typically using green screen technology to digitally create backgrounds. But Roth and his creative team also frequently shoot scenes throughout L.A.

They filmed a nighttime murder scene in the arts district in downtown L.A. this summer to promote the release of “The Silent Girl” by Tess Gerritsen, the latest installment in the “Rizzoli and Isles” book series that spawned the popular TNT series. Roth cast actors who looked like the stars of the TV show who play a medical examiner and a homicide detective.

The popularity of book trailers has also been accelerated by Hollywood's growing interest in finding the next “Harry Potter” or “Twilight Saga” book series to fuel the next global movie franchise.

“It’s becoming less and less common to buy books by their cover,’’ Roth said. “It’s more about showing eye-candy to reel them in.”

coelacanthflaps

for graebil

part of me sees this and agrees, another part of me rolls my eyes and groans

repost from ramblerawr

...this kid seems smart/talented and nosh, but i'm torn between feeling sorry for him and wanting to smack him upside the head

rolling ducklings

and they just keep walking...
MYLIFE

How to Be Alone

happy daylight savings

interesting sleep article

not my words but very true

“If we teach women that there are only certain ways they may acceptably behave, we should not be surprised when they behave in those ways.

And we should not be surprised when they behave these ways during attempted or completed rapes.

Women who are taught not to speak up too loudly or too forcefully or too adamantly or too demandingly are not going to shout “NO” at the top of their goddamn lungs just because some guy is getting uncomfortably close.

Women who are taught not to keep arguing are not going to keep saying “NO.”

Women who are taught that their needs and desires are not to be trusted, are fickle and wrong and are not to be interpreted by the woman herself, are not going to know how to argue with “but you liked kissing, I just thought…”

Women who are taught that physical confrontations make them look crazy will not start hitting, kicking, and screaming until it’s too late, if they do at all.

Women who are taught that a display of their emotional state will have them labeled hysterical and crazy (which is how their perception of events will be discounted) will not be willing to run from a room disheveled and screaming and crying.

Women who are taught that certain established boundaries are frowned upon as too rigid and unnecessary are going to find themselves in situations that move further faster before they realize that their first impression was right, and they are in a dangerous room with a dangerous person.

Women who are taught that refusing to flirt back results in an immediately hostile environment will continue to unwillingly and unhappily flirt with somebody who is invading their space and giving them creep alerts.

People wonder why women don’t “fight back,” but they don’t wonder about it when women back down in arguments, are interrupted, purposefully lower and modulate their voices to express less emotion, make obvious signals that they are uninterested in conversation or being in closer physical proximity and are ignored. They don’t wonder about all those daily social interactions in which women are quieter, ignored, or invisible, because those social interactions seem normal. They seem normal to women, and they seem normal to men, because we were all raised in the same cultural pond, drinking the same Kool-Aid.

And then, all of a sudden, when women are raped, all these natural and invisible social interactions become evidence that the woman wasn’t truly raped. Because she didn’t fight back, or yell loudly, or run, or kick, or punch. She let him into her room when it was obvious what he wanted. She flirted with him, she kissed him. She stopped saying no, after a while.”

November

I WILL DO YOGA EVERYDAY THIS MONTH.

that i'm in town.

and free.

/otherwise unobligated.

so I WILL DO YOGA SOME DAYS THIS MONTH.