What is art?

What is art?

In my mind you can't really define it. To some people art is their own instagram photos to others its a painting of a bowl of fruit. Below are some of my favorite pieces of art. What makes them art to me is that they express something, they make me feel something. the artist let a piece of them go and that to me is what makes art.

Source

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Am I dizzy? Usually yes but that’s only because I survive on a diet of coffee and cigarettes. So I guess you could call me Lucille 2, cause of my vertigo.


 But yes I find the internet dizzying, but that is what makes it amazing. i think that is one of the best features of the internet. It allows you to go out and find new shit all the time. It's how I found out about some of my new favorite things like Iggy Azalea, who by the way is amazing.

 The fact that we can get sucked into information black holes, is what makes the internet amazing. I love that I can start by looking a picture of a cat and somehow end up making a cheesecake two hours later.

 In fact it’s these black holes that lead me to buy three bottles of wine on the internet while attempting to do work. These black holes are amazing but they also have a negative side. Because they allow me to avoid work and or real life because I can just constantly click things and get distracted. To quote Liz Lemon

"I want to go to there."

Everyone should want to go to the internet. The craziness of the internet distracts us but it also teaches us. I view it as sort of the way of learning.

you are really dumb fo real

“The smartest person in the room is the room.” At first glance this quote doesn’t really seem to make sense. But when you sit down and think about it and maybe read a little more by Weinberger, it becomes this really cool concept. 

Well at least to me it does. Weinberger claim that it is the network that makes us smarter. It is the network that brings us this knowledge. Which to me conjures up this image of this “network” beast that just absorbs knowledge. It’s just there soaking up all that the rest of us have to offer and it’s amazing. This network connects everybody, so while you may think you are the smartest person in the room, which makes you kind of an asshole, it’s that connection that is really the smartest. 

He is promoting the sharing of ideas, he wants us to wake up and see the things going on around us. He says “the new way of knowing is becoming apparent” which makes sense to me because, no one can know everything but everyone can know something. And if we all connect and share and grow, we all become smarter. But we need this smart room, or network to do so and we need to do it properly. Because as he says if we do it wrong it will make us dumber.  

These rooms, these networks hold all of the knowledge we seek, they are to me the keeper of all things we need to know. So let’s get out there and create smart rooms and powerful networks.

Here's the thing

Let’s talk about cell phones. Recently my iPhone decided to shit the bed. So like a good Verizon customer I went to the store, they said they would mail me a replacement. They did but no one had to sign for it, so for about two hours there was just an iPhone sitting in the hall of my apartment. Which to me is bullshit, this is an item that had I not had insurance would have cost me $500, was just sitting in the cold dirty hallway. Then I decided to activate it which is supposed to happen on its own once you insert your sim card and turn your phone on. It didn't work, so I tried again and again and nothing. They told me to call them, which you can’t do if your cell phone doesn't work.

 After about an hour I found the live chat section on their website, then half an hour later the guy I was talking to get my phone to work. Which yay was amazing, except it used up all of my data and now I have a lovely overage charge. So for a few hours it work perfectly, then all of a sudden the wifi stopped working and my phone kept freezing. I had to reset it about 6 times and it still didn’t work. Then I decided to fuck it and just leave it. Now about 12 hours later, it can get wifi for about 5 mins at a time and the phone keeps freezing. So now I have to drive to Massena to go to the only official Verizon store and get another replacement and go through all this shit again. Hopefully they won’t sent me another broken one. The last time this happened my mother made someone cry and I got a free phone, so here’s hoping.

Cheesecake

            Everyone has little pet peeves, one of my biggest ones involves cheesecake. Specifically New York style cheesecake. Which is an abomination. If you try to serve me  NY style cheesecake I will either throw it and or ask for a bagel for all of that cream cheese. You see real cheesecake should be made with ricotta cheese or maybe even a nice mascarpone, not cream cheese like NY cheesecake. So if you make a cheesecake follow this recipe:

Ingredients
6 large eggs
2/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Two 15-ounce containers whole-milk ricotta cheese
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
Confectioners' sugar for dusting
Directions
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Spray the springform pan with cooking spray. Separate the eggs, placing the whites in one of the large bowls and the yolks in the work bowl of a food processor.

Add the sugar and vanilla to the work bowl of the food processor and process until thick and light yellow, about 1 minute. Add the ricotta and zest and process until smooth, another 30 seconds. Scrape the mixture into the other large bowl.

Beat the whites on high speed with the mixer until they hold stiff peaks. Fold the whites into the ricotta mixture and scrape into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with the spatula.

Bake until the cake is deep golden brown and the sides begin to pull away from the pan, about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Transfer to the rack to let cool completely. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until serving, at least 6 hours and up to 1 day. To serve, release the sides of the springform pan, dust with confectioners' sugar using the strainer, and cut into wedges.
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Read more at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ricotta-cheesecake-recipe.html?oc=linkback

I think it's time we all share ourselves

Everyone once and a while NPR puts on this thing they call The Moth. It's this event where they invite people to come read something they have written and or share a story of theirs. I think its amazing, I discovered this during another class when we could review a few stories and get extra credit. I then fell in love and downloaded all the videos I could. For this blog I watched  Nancy Finton's story "I Never Saw His Face" which i found to be amazingly powerful. She tells the dark story of her almost rape and lightens the mood with some dark humor.)
One of the reasons I love The Moth is because it exposes me to all sorts of writers and story tellers that i never would have heard of if it hadn't been for the Moth. Not only does it expose all sorts of writers but it lets you hear the story in their voice, it lets you feel the emotion. It puts a face, an expression, a person to the words. It turns a story into a life experience and I think that is amazing.


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In case that  first story was a little dark here is the first story I ever witnessed by the Moth and it is much happier. I hope you enjoy!