arttik.com Blog

Here I am working on updating my gallery and listening to The Stills. I loved this band. Operative word being “loved” in the past tense. I still remember going to see them live during the week when we were still having final exams. My friend Henry and I drove up to Broadway in our stressed out state. It was the typical spring Seattle night. Chilly, wet, but electric.

We got there a tad early so we had some drinks before the show. I had my favorite Long Island Iced Tea, which I felt was stronger than usual. The buzz was gone by the time the show had started though. We were pretty lucky and definitely thankful to be standing about 6 feet away from the band. (which is why some of the photos look so good)

The music was great but nowhere near the level of Godspeed/Sigur Ros/Sonic youth; nevertheless, it was one of the best times I have had at a show. Very unfortunately, the lead vocal and guitarist (very much the soul of the band, in my opinion) a few months left the band later. This, in a rather bitter-sweet manner, marked the performance we saw with a sense of mortality. The band I saw then is gone. There’s “The Stills” that still play and produce albums these days, then there’s “The Stills” that played on that wet spring night in March.

You can see pictures from that show here.

For the curious, “The Stills” that I loved produced one lone album called “Logic will break your heart”. Do look it up.

I learned a new word today which seems to be a very useful word,

demagogue |’demə,gäg|
noun
a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument.

• (in ancient Greece and Rome) a leader or orator who espoused the cause of the common people.

DERIVATIVES

demagogic |deməˈgäjik; -ˈgägik; -ˈgōjik| adjective
demagoguery |ˈdeməˌgägərē| noun
demagogy |ˈdeməˌgäjē; -ˌgōjē| noun

ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from Greek dēmagōgos, from dēmos ‘the people’ + agōgos ‘leading’ (from agein ‘to lead’ ).

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A string of recent events have made me more mature and humbled. Most of the time, I am capable of wrapping my mind around things, looking at them from different perspective, analyzing them, understanding them, and reacting to them properly. There are, however, certain things in this world that exceed the grasp of my intellect. Perhaps they are not even of this world.

It’s like those old ghost movie. In one instance, they can walk through walls and in another, they can pick things up.

So sometimes, I think to myself that I am on top of this, I can think it through. It seems like I can then. Then many other times, it’s just as tho I am walking through walls. None of my reasoning/experience can help me understand what is going on.

I do apologize for being so incredibly cryptic here.
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Muarakami’s book Kafka on the Shore is starting to get more and more interesting. I am feeling the “hook” I had experienced recently with Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go. I am beginning to see why my former English prof picked it for his world literature course.

(Seen here is also the new bed sheet from Esprit…
which just makes me giddy haha!)

One of my other little projects is to integrate all my old photographs/artworks from previous sites back into the new gallery. Speaking of the Arttik Gallery, I have turned off commentary because the spam was just getting insane. Due to the lack of good anti-spam control for comments, I can only turn it off until there are better controls.

‘Till then!