Getting in an interesting water-bottle fight at the Floriade several years ago.
Journal
New Shoes: Onitsuka Tiger!
| Onitsuka Tiger Mexiko 66 black/white These are my new Onitsuka Tigers, which I bought this Saturday. I really like them, and I’m slowly but surely maturing towards a lighter, more delicate sneaker than the ones I had before – ones that were all just different variations and imitations of the Adidas Classic anyway, with the possible exception of Mizuno’s Sala Libre. The Tigers were made popular with Bruce Lee’s Game of Death and later in Tarantino’s Kill Bill, and now by me! |
Passport Photos
So it is time to get my passport renewed, which means it’s my quadrennial trip to the photoshop to get photos made. For my last passport it was already mandatory to get special, biometric-sensitive photos made, on which you couldn’t smile, your ears had to be visible and everything had to fit in certain dimensions, all to facilitate future facial recognition software at airports and border crossings. Now they are also adding fingerprint information on the passport for more advanced identification. (If all of that doesn’t unsettle or even scare you then we should talk, because I’d love to be as comfortably numb as you.) Anyway, photos made and they are aweful. Below are two photos, side-by-side, one from August 1st, 2007, and the other from today. I think I lost a bit of weight in face, gained a bit in hair, but one thing is certain, I still look awful. :)
| August 1st, 2007 vs September 24th, 2009 |
Negative Capability and Loss
Recently, the concept of negative capability came up in two, different and unrelated situations and it has made me think. Negative capability is a theory by the poet John Keats, who believed that great people have the ability to accept that not everything can be resolved. In the last three years I lost as many important people in my life, and instead of spending needless amounts of energy frustrating over it, I could cut my losses and divert my energy to building something new. It’s not in my nature, however, and in the case of my loss it’s next to impossible to let go. So I’ll remain content in the idea that this is what I should be doing, and perhaps one day I’ll be able to let go.