Hi all! I’m just popping in to invite you to the Blanc Inaugural Show entitled Tones of Home. It opens on May 22, 2013—which is a Wednesday—at 6PM. It will be held at Blanc Gallery, 145 Katipunan Avenue, St. Ignatius, QC. :)

I have three small works in the show, and my dad and brother also have some new stuff up. Also, as you can see, there are a lot of people involved. I’m pretty sure you’ll find something you like! So, pass by, it’ll be fun!

In case you are curious about the list of artist and the literature that accompanies the show, I’ve pasted it here:

TONES OF HOME
“Geography is destiny” (James Ellroy)

The act of moving house is a function of many different things, mostly having to do with upgrade, with logistics. But if we take Ellroy at his word, it could also be taken as a mastering of destiny, a permutation that dovetails neatly into the implications that come into play if the house in question is a gallery space, in which the movement could signify, on one hand, a shifting of energies, a re-calibrating of dynamics even. But there is something utilitarian in Blanc’s re-purposing of its existing three spaces into backrooms and possibly even residencies and moving all exhibitions into the single, new space, that remains of a piece with its philosophy, which is quintessentially a utilitarian one in and of itself.

Click here to read the rest.

Do you ever get that feeling where you kind of run out of things to say, except that you have to mention that you don’t have anything to say? That happens to me very often, and I don’t know why I always feel compelled to still say anything. I think I feel a little intimidated when I see my last post on a blog or something and remember how long ago that post was made.

A few weeks ago, this little space on the internet was hacked (not like serious hacking, though, just a little front-end messing up) and I lost an entry I worked really hard at. (A reader pointed out that it was still on my RSS feed, thank da Lord. Thank you, Kat!) I feel like that contributed a little to me not wanting to write in this space right here.

Truthfully, I don’t know why any of you would care. I know I’ve lost my momentum for steady traffic here. Who wants to check a cobwebbed space anyway? I update my beauty blog a lot, because it’s easier to write about beauty and makeup than it is to come up with stuff for everything else. I have been reading a lot, though. Comparatively, anyway. I finished two books recently—Rainbow Rowell’s “Eleanor & Park” which was a beautiful YA read set in the 80s, and Jack Cheng’s “These Days,” which was super sad (for me at least) and about technology and relationships. It got me to thinking about how dependent I am on technology and how cut-off I still am from everyone.

“These Days” was the first project I funded on Kickstarter. It made me join Kickstarter in the first place. Since then, I’ve funded 15 projects, and am waiting for the day when I fill up the pie chart. I think I’m missing 6 more categories.

Sometimes I feel like my constant connection to the Internet has sucked out my ability to properly connect with people in real life. Thinking back, though, I think it’s unfair to demonize technology and the Internet. Who’s to say that I will be more adept at social cues and situations apart from the Internet, anyway? I could still be a social dumbass if I lived in a remote village.

Anyway, that’s not the point. There is no point, really. I just read a book and it made me think. A lot. I used to say that I was “Re-learning how to be a Person 1.0,” which is something I thought up after reading Zadie Smith’s article on Jaron Lanier’s “You are not a Gadget” and The Social Network. That was a couple of years ago, and I’m still not a Person 1.0. I don’t think a lot of people are their 1.0 versions anymore, and maybe that’s OK.

A few days ago, I read Paul Miller’s article, which was an update after he spent 1 year away from the Internet. He made me realize that the Internet isn’t the problem; the problem is much more intrinsic and much more a part of me than a part of the web. My laziness and listlessness is not caused by the Internet; rather, it’s caused by me and how I am.

Nobody else is to blame, and it’s astounding how long it took me to realize that.

Between that time and reading “These Days,” I mused about my musings on the work habits of people today and a few years go. On April 30th, one of my heroes passed away. Apparently, while he was confined in the hospital, he was still asking for pen and paper so he could draw.

My dad is one of the most intrinsically creative people I know. I say “creative” in the sense that he makes stuff all the time. When he sees something beautiful, he makes a photograph. All the time, he is scribbling, painting, and sketching. He doesn’t read much, and he always seems so proud of me because I do. But what’s the point of all of my consumption of books, and articles, and blog posts, and pictures, if I don’t even make anything?

So, I think, all that’s left here is for me to try harder… I don’t know what the problem is, to be honest. I think Ryan Adams said it best when he said, “Focus on one thing. Make that one thing really good.” I have so many plans and there are so many things I want to do that I keep on flitting from one thing to another. I should stop that. Not so many things all at once, anyway.

Jack Cheng is actually a designer and he used to be a copywriter for an ad agency, but in 2013, he published his first novel. Seeing the book he labored over for so long come into fruition is inspiring. It’s a pretty good book, too. A few days before receiving the physical copy, I held a digital one in my hands. I read a few lines, but decided to wait for the book, and when I felt the heft and read the words, black stark against white, it felt real. And it made me feel like a lot of my dreams were possible. It’s not about what the book said, but what it represented: this used to be just an idea that people helped get made, and now it’s a book.

I think I just needed a little push and maybe this embarrassingly voluminous amount of word vomit did the trick.

You know when I said that I quit YouTube because of people being mean about it? I forgot about the part where my Internet is ant-speed-slow and about how my computer can’t process things for crap. But anyway, here is a video. Yay.

Nash asked me to comment on karakamos’ brilliant video called “On Being Ugly.” Given that it’s pretty much perfect, I decided to think about other things and that led to this, I suppose. It’s really not as depressing as it seems. I just kind of, somehow, ended up thinking about my friendships and such. It’s not that I don’t have any friends, but I guess I just don’t get to talk to a lot of them. I would like to and stuff, obviously, but how does that even happen?

ANYWAY. Here is the video called “On Being Ugly.” Check it out, because it’s very thoughtful and, IDK, it’s not a pity party or defensive. It’s… just what it is:

So, I’m heading off to The Manila Review’s launch for the second issue. Pretty exciting. I’ll tell you all about it soon. :) April’s been eventful, even though it doesn’t seem like it.

Oh, by the way. This blog was hacked two times in the last couple of days. I don’t know why that is. I posted a Day 4 for my Japan Trip, but it wasn’t in the latest backup of my data. So there’s that. Nothing to do here but go forward.

Have a lovely weekend, guys.

The plan for the morning was to go see sakura trees at Osaka Expo Park, but it was so far away from everything else we wanted to see. Luckily, I found an “alternative” park near where we were staying called Utsubo Park in a guide book in our hostel. Utsubo Park is located in Nishi-ku, near the Awaza Station. We hoped that there would be cherry blossoms there, and lo! There were. :)

Utsubo Park (or what we saw of it) was fairly small. There’s a lot of other foliage, but we naturally gravitated towards the cherry blossoms.

So pretty, in the mid-morning light.

These happened because we are tourists.

Under the cut: more sakura, Nishi-ku, the Osaka Aquarium, Umeda & Ippudo Ramen

Hello everyone!

In case you don’t follow me on Twitter or Instagram, I just got back from Japan! I went with Sarie, Isa, and Barby, and we explored Osaka and Kyoto. We were also there for the sakura festival, which was magical to say the least. Sarie had been to Osaka a long time ago, but it was the first time for the rest of us.

My beautiful best friends. :)

With Isa.

Airline silliness with Sarie.

Weak attempt at funniness.

Kansai Airport! Hello, Osaka!

This is going to be a long post, so click-through if you want to see! :) Inside: Kuromon Market, Cat Cafe, All-You-Can-Eat Yakiniku

I’ve been back on YouTube a lot lately, and though I’ve mostly been goofing around with beauty-related channels (and videos of my own), I’ve been getting back into the habit of checking vlogs and channels of people I used to enjoy watching for hours on end. I’ve been discovering a lot of new people on the site as well, and watching these videos really rekindled a love for YouTube that began in 2006. Here’s a video I made, recounting “My YouTube Story,” though there isn’t really much to say.

Succinctly, I wanted to vlog, so I uploaded random clips in 2006, my first vlog in 2007, and then I stopped shortly after that. I’m not the best speaker, especially when it comes to new people, so I rarely ever say ‘yes’ to invitations for me to speak in public, though I do think that I am getting better at it.

All this time, I assumed that I stopped vlogging or recording because it was so taxing to film and edit and try to upload videos because of our Internet (snail mbps) and my school load at the time, but watching an episode of Becoming YouTube brought to light some “trauma” I’ve buried in my head (I talk a bit about those particular moments in my video).

“Girls on YouTube,” Becoming YouTube

There have been mixed reviews on that particular episode, but my main take-away from that video is I love YouTube, so I will make videos for YouTube. Fairly simple. I know it’s not for everyone. Whenever I watch vlogs or online shows and videos, people find it weird, and I feel like a leper or something.

As awkward as it is to watch the videos I made years ago, I did manage to make a few friends who I sadly never kept in touch with, unlike the friends I made over at LiveJournal. I guess that’s inevitable, as contact should be sustained, but yeah. It’s just a nice memory and I keep those videos up just to remember how putting my awkward self out there could maybe be a kind of bravery in itself already. I don’t know.

Content creation for YouTube is so fascinating to me. It’s an exercise in creativity, and it forges relationships with people from all over the world. It makes people think; it entertains people and makes them laugh. I love the democracy of the platform, even though I’ve come across a lot of—let’s face it—crap. I know that there are a lot of avenues to exchange ideas and meet new people, but YouTube is a really different animal.

Anyway, that’s that! I just wanted to share that part of my life with you. :) I’m working on some travel vlogs (I took a lot of footage on vacation), book reviews, et cetera, so if you’re into that sort of thing, subscribe to my unfortunately-named channel: carinatragedy.

As always, thanks for reading.