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Showing posts from November, 2006

response to "how can i help?" emails

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my friends. i am coming to you in response to several of you emailing me and asking how you can support my trip to india, well i am not one for charity concerning myself but did indeed find a way for you to help. even though my trip is paid for we could always use help with building supplies and there are some others that really want to go on the trip that need to make ends meet just to go. i still have about 30 of the lithographs still available that i designed for our haiti trip. email me at modestyguild@gmail.com and i will give you more details how you can order the lithograph and help support our trip to calcutta, india. if you did not get a chance to read about the trip you can click here for more information. thanks so much, esteban

more tomorrows than yesterdays. for now.

this past week i had the chance to hang out with my family, we had a wonderful thanksgiving weekend and had the opportunity to spend a lot of time just reading and listening to the new album leaf record (a perfect compromise for parents opposed to anything to loud.) we went to an imax presentation of into the deep, a 45 minute documentary on creatures in the ocean, some that i had never seen or heard of before. it was beautifully filmed and danny elfman solidified himself as my favorite soundtrack writer. afterwards we stumbled into a museum which turned out to be a children's museum, and after a couple of minutes the lot of us were completely jejune & done looking. on the second level hidden away was a doddering machine that had an anti smoking warning from a local police department. as i sat down i realized that the machine projected what you were going to look like throughout the rest of your life, i was instantly intrigued. after i took the picture i waited the minute requi...

a brief social commentary #3 (mating rituals of homo sapiens)

i find it so intriguing the way us humans participate in the mating ritual. time and time again i would be watching national geographic channel or discovery and i would gasp to myself as to the correlation between the animal and the human "pull". i once saw a male bird build a nest for days and days, and after calling all the female birds in the area several female birds came and sat in the nest. if she felt comfortable, stable, and taken care of she would stay and if not she would leave. have you ever driven in an area of town where the houses are run down and trash lines the streets and noticed that the cars that the home owners drive are mercedes, bmw's, and other such high priced cars? i always wondered if that was some sort of adaptation where they attract the female, much like the bird, by putting their best foot forward and giving the female the illusion of stability & comfort. next time you are participating in a social event watch the "single" peopl...

my album of the year...

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the time travel/ an exploration of a distant mind.

i have had the amazing experience of getting into someone's mind. reading private thoughts and exploring a whole new world and time. my whole life i have always wanted to read someone's journal. secretly wishing someone would leave there's behind on a table or desk so that i could see there thoughts, psychoanalyze them as best i could; find out who they are, who they think they are, experience where they are going. maybe the bottom line is that i just wanted to feel normal. think that maybe my worst fears are there's as well. and we are all connected on some level. it never happened. no one ever left their journal. and even if i did find one i don't know if i would have had enough guts to read it, because i know how violated i would feel knowing someone read one of mine. it is apart of me. i would feel violated, hurt, as if my words held no more weight. which always brought me to the question, what should i do with all the journals in my life. should i burn them? sh...

nude descending a staircase

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this is a painting from a man by the name of marcel duchamp called nude descending a staircase. i dont know why i love this painting so much. maybe it is because when i was taking art history it was one of the first DADA movement pieces i had ever seen. we had just got over the jejune and boring era of realism and anything other than monet, renoir, or degas would have been welcomed. when this piece appeared on the screen i froze in my chair. it was nothing i could think up (as opposed to a girl tying a ballet slipper). it was genious, and the colors alone were enough to allure me for another glance. part cubism, part symbolic, all rebelious. that is why this is one of my favoite art pieces of all time. duchamp only painted about 20 pieces in his whole life. he moved to new your city in 1910 (i believe) and after finishing the small number of works in his life devoted himself completely to chess. random. but true. -esteban (a little history) 'Marcel Duchamp (28 July 1887 - 2 Octobe...

a brief social commentary #2 (observance of the second beginning)

if you watch a child and his or her behavior they usually have a routine, even though its spastic and not always in control the basics and primary needs are pretty much the same. for the youngest they need to be fed and constantly watched to keep them from harming themselves. when a child is in the room many people are watching him/her to make sure that they don't fall down or lash out at others. if you watch an elderly person at the later state of his/her winter they usually have a routine, even though it is spastic and not always in control the basics and primary needs are pretty much the same. for the elderly they need to be fed and constantly watched to keep from harming themselves. it seems we once again begin the cycle that we started with right before we die. i wonder if it was designed like that, the womb not yet life, death not ever alive again. i am not sure, but as i have said before it is not death that scares me it is getting so old that i no longer can care for myself...

anchor&braille update

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anchor&braille has a new merch store . if you want to create a design for A&B i would love to see anything you come up with! -stephen christian modestyguild@gmail.com

a brief social commentary #1 (the looming)

while walking through a city the other night my mind stumbled to the buildings looming high above me, so very out of reach. i marveled at the architecture and thought how amazed someone from centuries ago would have been at our modern achievments and may have thought they stumbled onto heaven if only by the shear mass of the structures. i then realized that the tallest building two hundred years ago would have been a church, and upon further observations i noticed that the tallest buildings in america now would be financial institutions. in orlando, where this dawned on me, it was bank of america, wachovia bank, and sun trust bank that were the largest buildings downtown. i wonder if that is where our hearts have left of, or where our hearts have turned us. no longer do we pursue things outside our grasp or the intangible; but have reshaped our nation to the tangible.