Monthly Archives: September 2009
Arjmand
Photographing people with darker skin is a little different than capturing those with fairer skin. You don’t worry so much about the colour tones during shoot as after, when you’re post-processing the photos.
I also find that, in general, girls are natural posers. They’ll change positions on their own initiative and play with the camera, which is very different from guys, who will just stand there until you give them some sort of direction. Each has their own advantages, as I can feed off the creativity of a model who wants to try different things, but also work well with those who will be posing dolls for me.
The Only Way To Listen To Music
The only way to listen to music is with your heart in your throat and your headphones on, sitting on a curb in the shade, telling yourself you’ll be fine as long as you get the voice out of your head and the smell out of your senses, killing your top rated, wondering if you can call someone, anyone out there, to distract yourself, but no, you’ll handle it on your own, because you’re strong enough, you’ve been through the worst of it already, and this is just another thing, wondering why it’s only in situations like this that the beats pound your chest like a sledgehammer and the voices sing out achingly in place of your dumb silence.
Surreptitiously Published
It started with this tweet by Jay Hori. I was all like, “What? What blog design book?”.
Jay told me the name, so I found a copy of “クリエーターのための3行レシピ ブログデザイン” through HMV Japan, and they shipped it to me.
I flipped through the book and noticed that some of my web design idols were in there, like Dan Cederholm of SimpleBits and Shaun Inman1. I wonder if Dan or Shaun know they’re in this book. That’s right, I’m on a first name basis with them. We hang.
When I got to recipe 57 (they label all their design tricks as “recipes”), I saw a picture of my website. My experiences with therapy were on the front page, along with me saying “Sometimes I come out feeling like a monster, like some horrible, fucked-up person.” I guess they don’t use English copy editors, and my curse-filled words may give English speaking Japanese people the impression that Canadians are psychological monsters.
But aside from my own words, I realized it was the only thing I could understand. I had to ask someone who could read Japanese. Someone who just came back from studies there, and wasn’t allow to speak or write English for a month. Maggie. She sent me this:
Your site is being used to explain “Navigation through simplistic icons”. Or like, simple, low-key, uncomplicated. The right side introduces WordPress and Moveable Type and talks about their uses of templates and template customization, then introduces your site as doing something (can’t understand the word) with the background in contrast to how you use simple/clean icons as your navigation.
On the left page, under the screenshot of your site it says “Displaying navigation through minimum design. Designated using CSS, the minimum use of files is excellent.” Bad translation. The way you use your files (I’m guessing this refers to the actual number of pages and stuff on your site) is also quite minimum and that is nice.
Cool.
And with the code for my comment bubble right in front of me, I had to wonder about the legal implications. It probably wasn’t legal for them to publish my source code, which is why they didn’t contact any of the owners of the websites to tell them that they were published. I hear the copyright laws are notoriously lax in Japan.
- Regarding his use of the old flash header that was a wave, inspired by anime. Shaun and I were also featured in the Perishable Press minimalism in web design series. [↩]
The Regret Of A Night Lost
I should be happy. Or feeling bittersweet, at least. On the one hand, I’m thankful to have had the chance to share so many things with her:
- listening to Bring Me The Disco King (Lohner Remix), as she sat curled in my lap in the darkness of my room
- runs for bubble tea before settling in for the night with a movie or two
- a road trip to Toronto, where I got to introduce her to my friends, Pacific Mall, and dragon’s beard candy
- parties at Pat and Jen’s, with board games, Rock Band, delicious food, amazing people, and general silliness
- moments like this
- looking into her eyes while our bodies were locked in blankets on the living room floor
- reading my favourite parts of The Prophet to her
- just the two of us going to dim sum on a beautiful Saturday morning, and introducing her to a medley of new dishes
But there’s one thing I regret, and that’s not being able to spend the night with her, for she had never slept over, you see. Sure, there were times when we stayed awake well past sunrise, with only the touch of hand and flesh as silent dialogue, my desire to prolong the pleasure driving my will to stay awake to every moment possible with her. Those are some of my favourite memories. But the sleep that eventually took us was only our bodies passing out briefly from exhaustion, and when we woke, she’d be gone soon after.
There are other things I wish I had had the chance to do while it lasted — sharing a relaxing bath, photography and video ideas, getting involved in a deep co-op game — but none of them were as important as a night spent sleeping together.
A long time ago, I wrote about how a girlfriend helped me figure out the importance of the night because of my earlier romances, and the situations that never let me share something as simple as sleep, the most intimate of intimates.
In a relationship, sharing the night is more important than sharing fluids. Falling asleep with someone is an acceptance of trust, a way of saying that we’re comfortable enough to drift into our subconscious minds.
Perhaps it was my fault for keeping her awake. I wonder now, if on one night, I should have let myself sleep, instead of letting our passion take us long into the next day.