Sydney Sleeps Cold ...

This week marks the begining of the APEC summit held in Australia, where Asia, Pacific world leaders come together for meetings regarding all things economic and trade. sadly this comes at the expense of an estimated $300 million for a week of .... meetings. Yup you guessed it, we are the ones paying for it. more absurdly is the state of fear surrounding Sydney at the moment that has led the city to be virtually "Fortressed" and shut down to accomodate a "safer environment for world leaders". barracaded out with steel fencing, police patroling the lines of defence, CCTV watching every corner .... are we in a police state yet people?

Police yesterday said they are not opposed to a march, planned for Saturday, but reject the protesters' planned route, which passes the U.S. Consulate in Sydney, but is several city blocks from the summit venue.

With Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin attending the APEC summit, protesters also plan to demonstrate against human rights abuses in China, nuclear proliferation and global warming.

Sydney Police : "Be aware of the mob rule mentality. Don't be enticed by those that would seek to have you get involved in an unlawful act," Scipione told a news conference. I wonder if those sentiments are echoed in a similar way in Police briefings? the coin flips both ways, and cops are human too. meaning that violent actions happen on both sides of the fence, from both parties, and sadly this is the only concern for our ailing media to cover. If only they looked around and saw how their rights have been shoved to the side, city closed off without public support, fear and intimidation tactics around ever "blue" street corner, they wouldnt need to resort to pumping up this protest wrestle match happening on Saturday.

Instead lets start asking the questions. Why are these people so important that our surrogate capital city in Sydney needs to be fenced off to its inhabitants? not keeping them in, but out of the city. What dont they want us to see or hear? How can we give away our rights and liberties to these minority authoritive forces who feel they are on the cutting edge of deeming what is "safe and unsafe" for us to see, hear or interact with?

Its almost like they seem to have feed us the "violent protests in Sydney" script before its even been filmed, in order to justify their means of creating a Berlin wall around the city. Its simple, feed the media the bullshit, the media then feeds it to us, we get scared about planned "violent youths" attacking people, we shut the doors and stay inside our comfortable four walls, we give in to the fear story. as Dubya would say ..... Mission Accomplished

PROTEST REPORT:
DAILY TELEGRAPH REPORT:
STOP BUSH 2007: Official Site, Info, Peaceful Protest

Foo Fighters ... The Rumble Begins

Foo Fighters are an American rock band formed by musician Dave Grohl in 1995. The group is named after the World War II term "foo fighter", used to refer to mysterious aerial phenomena. "Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace" is the sixth album by the Foo Fighters, set for release on September 25, 2007. "The Pretender" is the first single released from the record and the expansive video is playing around the world as we speak.

The song starts with a mellow guitar intro but after about 30 seconds, it kicks into high gear and becomes a Foo Fighters classic. The sound is a mix of old and new, rocking as ever a lead single should be, its still not quite a creation from the "Colour and the Shape" years.

The video was directed by Sam Brown. It consists of the band performing the song in a large aircraft hanger, with a white floor and many halogen strip lights on the ceiling. Behind the band is a large red screen, which is thick and solid. The band is then faced by what appears to be a riot police officer, who stands behind a black line on the floor, around 30 feet or so from the band. As the song progresses, he is joined by more riot police officers, and a panning shot shows us that to his left, the numbers on the officers' vests descend all the way to "01".

During a quiet part late in the song, the video slows down as the officers charge at the band. Just as the band repeats the song's louder chorus, the view suddenly erupts in a torrent of red liquid, as the large red screen behind the band explodes, flushing away the enforcers.

Why am I posting this? yeh im a huge fan of the "Foos" but this song screams "Protest". Its almost as if, after hearing that their music was used without their consent during pro Republican / Bush rallies of the 2004 election year, Dave Grohl has woken up to the power the band holds and what difference they can make. being a huge supporter of Gore, his ethics and concerns, Dave is finally pissed off enough to make music reflecting this need to stand up against the system, and to get things back on track, environmentally, politically, and socially. The lyrics speak for themselves.

FOO FIGHTERS: THE PRETENDER
Keep you in the dark
You know they all pretend
Keep you in the dark
And so it all began

Send in your skeletons
Sing as their bones go marching in... Again
The need you buried deep
The secrets that you keep are ever ready
Are you ready?
I'm finished making sense
Done pleading ignorance
That whole defense

What if I say I'm not like the others?
What if I say I'm not just another one of your plays?
You're the pretender
What if I say I will never surrender?

I'm the voice inside your head
You refuse to hear
I'm the face that you have to face
Mirrored in your stare
I'm what's left, I'm what's right
I'm the enemy
I'm the hand that will take you down
Bring you to your knees

So who are you?
Yeah, who are you?
Yeah, who are you?

FOO FIGHTERS: background
FOO'S BILLBOARD ARTICLE: new album talk
WHATS A FOO FIGHTERS?
INVISIBLE CREATURE: agency designing the artwork for the album and singles
SAM BROWN: music video director
FULL LYRICS

psst. Foo Fighters are scheduled to return to Australia in DEC. mmm BDO? or will that be left to Rage Against The Machine? who knows, but with TOOL returning as well its gonna be a big summer. ahhhh back to work. Miguel, book me a room.


FULL VIDEO: click to watch.

Blood Moon ...

Views of tonight’s rare lunar eclipse have been hampered by heavy cloud in the Perth metropolitan area. However views of the spectacular red moon have already been captured in the nation's east and New Zealand. The eclipse was expected to turn the moon a vibrant copper colour and reports have rolled in of brilliant scenes around Australia, however so far Perth residents have missed out on the spectacular.

Got Questions? : CLICK
Want Pics? : CLICK
Want More Info? CLICK

XXVI

Searching for something. what i don't know. answers i guess. to what questions? only a few have been asked. XXVI cycles. searching, looking, digging, creating, waiting. deviating from the road once or twice, filling up and pushing onwards.

Reminding myself that im that much closer. seems this year is flying and soon to be at the end, so i'll make a wish. to enjoy the seconds and not the minutes. realising that this is all fleating and i need to step back every second or two. break ... now run again.

Thanks to all of you that have helped along the way, forever in your debt. i heard a phrase the other day from a woman who had just opened her own business. "So when does this get fun?" then i thought, well if you reach the end, "the fun" aint it just over? isn't getting to "the fun" the good part. should that be enjoyed? or not. and so we journey on .... she said, old soul. i like that thought. been around the bend maybe. maybe not. maybe just more tuned to the level. the level we cant taste, touch, see, feel or hear. but to connect ... the masks dont usually fall away too often. today, maybe for a second, they needed to.

Sharks Have Fingers Too Ya Know ....

The basic process for developing fingers and toes in land animals may have existed for more than 500 million years in shark genes, according to a new study. Researchers identified genetic activity in spotted catsharks embryos that signal the creation of digits. The discovery pushes back the date of the evolutionary "fin to limb" advance by some 135 million years.

Limb development, which happens in the fetal stage of all limbed animals, is driven by the so-called Hox gene. The early stage of the Hox gene expression regulates the development of limbs down to the forearm and shin. The later phase is responsible for forming fingers and toes. "It has long been thought that fish fins exhibit only the early wave of Hox expression..." Cohn told National Geographic News.

One step closer to growing those shark fins :) i love these creatures ... always have. I need to learn how to scuba dive pronto. hehe.

SOURCE: National Geographic
SHARK: images

The Dark Knight ...

Larger Resolution shots of these have been cleared from the net in swoop by the film studio responsible for the new Batman movie : The Dark Knight. so im posting versions i found lying around the place, scattered for the hunters. it just makes me laugh because this IS EXACTLY WHAT WARNER BRO'S WANTED! ....

wake up people. its hype viral marketing and its worked so well before. the more they play up the shots as "not for general viewing" the more people are just gonna rush out and swarm the net to find these images. priming up the movie with excitment. considered why the shots are professionally taken? 1+2 =3.

here's 18.
personally, im a big fan of Nolans interpretations, and Bale's reworking. now Ledger is going to be the breaking point here as the Joker. can he pull it off and become a true homage to the graphic novel equivelants? i truely hope so. plus he's killing it in those socks aint he? i want a pair.

Dark Knight opens 2008, July. for those who still think this is a 60s teen comic book, kiddies movie. dig a little deeper. The Long Halloween. Arkham Asylum. true interpretations. from great artists. so i'd love to say this is a finger in the air to the studios trying to stop these pics getting out .... but its what they wanted all along.

Destruction is Creation ....

STILL LIFE:
Martin Klimas destroys a lot of clay to make his art. Combining the silence of Eadweard Muybridge’s horse pictures with the association-rich composition of a still life, Klimas breaks recognizable objects so they become something else, and stops us just at the moment of transformation.

I wonder, when you look at your own finished work, do you see what you’ve just destroyed, or what you’ve made from the transformation?

The aspect of destroying is not the most important one in my work. Let’s say it is a catalyst to unleash and study this transformation. The hardest part of my work is to smash so many figurines until I find one that truly is showing me something new. I am in that sense a sculptor, but I have only a 5000th of a second to build my sculpture.

JUST TOO COOL: click here for more

A Year Later ...

HUGE EARTHQUAKE ROCKS PERU!

Close to a year ago, (August 27th) I had just comenced a world trip which would begin in Lima, heading later for the Andes and Machu Picchu. Today its widespread news that Coastal Peru was hit by a massive 7.9 earthquake with the risk of tidal waves. Best wishes and safe thoughts go out to the people of Peru and the locals we met along our way. now if only LA would follow suit and slide into Arizona Bay. Wishful thinking.
"Hundreds dead in Peru earthquake"

A strong earthquake and at least four aftershocks have struck off the central coast of Peru. At least 350 people have been killed and 200 injured in the southwestern cities of Ica and Pisco. Alan Garcia, Peru's president, sent condolences to the families of the earthquake's victims and said the country, which has suffered devastating earthquakes in the past, narrowly escaped a major disaster.

READ MORE HERE:
AND HERE:

One Minute At A Time ...

Headspace as of 5:55AM Aug 16th.
Lyrics from a Movie soundtrack that speak so true lol. if you've never seen Fight Club, run to the videostore. just try and avoid the PA system announcments they have on now days ... "Piracy affects us all ... Keep your community safe and make BlockBuster aware of your concerns." .. i kid you not, thats what i heard the other day at my local store. i burst out laughing and walked out thinking ....

you cant fool me, finger in the air.

FIGHT CLUB
This is your life Good to the last drop
It doesn't get any better than this
This is your life and its ending one minute at a time

This isn't a seminar This isn't a weekend retreat
Where you are now You can't even imagine what the bottom will be like
Only after disaster can we be resurrected
Its only after you've lost everything that you are free to do anything
Nothing is static Everything is evolving
Everything is falling apart

You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake
You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else
We are all part of the same compost heap
We are the all singing, all dancing crap of the world

You are not your bank account
You are not the clothes you wear
You are not the contents of your wallet

I say evolve, and let the chips fall where they may.

FULL LYRICS

Step 01: Control Media. Step 02: Control the Minds

Been quiet as of late, coming months will be super busy with the lead up to the final year exhibit. This recent news came to my attention via Bens Blog and i just had to post it. Read on for details.

ROCK CONCERT WEBCAST: SPONSORED/CENSORED BY AT&T?
A live Internet broadcast of Pearl Jam's performance at Chicago's Lollapalooza music festival Sunday went off without a hitch -- until singer Eddie Vedder criticized President Bush.

Lyrics critical of the president didn't make it past editors of the show's Webcast, the band complained Wednesday on its Web site.

When asked about the missing performance, AT&T informed Lollapalooza that portions of the show were in fact missing from the webcast, and that their content monitor had made a mistake in cutting them.

During the performance of "Daughter" the following lyrics were sung to the tune of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" but were cut from the webcast:

- "George Bush, leave this world alone." (the second time it was sung); and
- "George Bush find yourself another home."

This, of course, troubles us as artists but also as citizens concerned with the issue of censorship and the increasingly consolidated control of the media.

AT&T's actions strike at the heart of the public's concerns over the power that corporations have when it comes to determining what the public sees and hears through communications media. Aspects of censorship, consolidation, and preferential treatment of the internet are now being debated under the umbrella of "NetNeutrality."

Even the ex-head of AT&T, CEO Edward Whitacre, has stated just last March that fears his company and other big network providers would block traffic on their networks are overblown. "Any provider that blocks access to content is inviting customers to find another provider." (Marguerite Reardon, Staff Writer, CNET News.com Published: March 21, 2006, 2:23 PM PST).

But what if there is only one provider from which to choose? If a company that is controlling a webcast is cutting out bits of our performance -not based on laws, but on their own preferences and interpretations - fans have little choice but to watch the censored version.

What happened to Pearl Jam this weekend should be viewed as a wake up call, and it's about something much bigger than the censorship of a rock band. Wake up people. Inform yourself, and fight for your rights.

PEARL JAM : Full Articles
SAVE THE INTERNET
PJ : Activism
INFOWARS

QEE .. not KEY

Sup. things are rolling and fast, all my UNI work seems to just have been lumped all into my lap with the catch phrase ... " this is your work, now feel free to work on everything all at once" lol. ahhh! the great thing is it seems there are some really nice projects to do for this semester, diverse and strange and also your general corporate angled things. ... i know im making no sense but give me a break its 7AM on a Saturday.

Qee Doll : designer vinyl toy.
we get to design grfx for one this semester.
can the kids say ... Super Cool!






Big two sixer coming up. um yeh, can i take 5 of them back already :) time going too fast. feel free to order me a special QEE, or DUNNY or MUNNY.

No Children Were Harmed During ...