World Wide Celebration of Robert Bell's 30th Birthday!

Hello everyone!

When Robert David Bell turns 30 years old this year (that is on March 28th, for those of you who don't remember), the whole world will be celebrating the event... that's right the whole world!

For one hour, from 8:30pm to 9:30pm on this March 28th, millions and millions of people across the globe will be turning off their lights and their computers and all other electrical devices, to show their support and respect for all that Robert Bell has accomplished in his 30 years of life so far.

Robert's Response Upon Hearing of the Event -

"It is a wonderful tribute, and I am deeply honored by it. But I know, in my heart, that I could not have achieved all that I have without all those that I have come into contact with over the years. Whether by their assistance or resistance to my endeavours, it has made no difference in the end, because all of it has shaped me. It is by my interactions with all of the people I have known that I have found the ways to grow and change and become what I am today. And for that I am truly humbled and truly grateful to all of my friends and enemies... thank you."

For more information on how you (whether you are friend or enemy... or both!) can participate in the Robert Bell Celebration Hour on March 28th, 2009, check the link below:

http://www.earthhour.org/

.My Loopt

If you're interested in more frequent updates about the things I'm doing and the things being done to me, check in the "OTHERS" section of this blog, and click on ".My Loopt".... there you will find a GPS-based Photo Journal that stretches back to September, and will continue to have updates on a regular basis... or at least, more regular than this blog.

Enjoy.

Tea Party 2008!

Alice, will you come join our tea party?

Alice - March Hare/White Rabbit - Mad Hatter

Clean Cup! Clean Cup!

Alice, is this the moment where the white rabbit bites its own head off?

Swann's Way: My First Blog after Halloween & Obama

She wore a white hat, that sat a little too highly on her head. Her scarf seemed handmade. There was a moment of eye contact, but it was by no means flirtatious.  Rather, it was the eye contact people give to me because they want to make sure that the crazy wild-haired giant that suddenly appeared in front of them can be trusted in such close proximity.

She was reading Proust's "Swann's Way" in English. She was laughing. I did not think of Proust as an author who provoked laughter. So I kept watching. I've only read excerpts of his work. Then, somewhere around 42nd Street, she switched to a French copy of the same text. I was impressed, and I thought maybe she was laughing at the translation errors between the two texts. That's when I had to take a picture, to remember to find out more about this.

Turns out it is the first book of Proust's major work, "The Remembrance of Things Past", which I come to find is now being translated as "In Search of Lost Time", which provokes many different connotations to this English ear. So I kept looking for information, but the Internet Bible (Wikipedia) was unclear as to whether the text contained humor or not... so as I fall asleep tonight I am no closer to finding out whether or not the text itself is funny, or the translation is funny, or both... can anyone help me with this?

September... and then October

So, the blogging has really dried up here at iBellum. But what else is to be expected, now that I have been sucked into the twin engines of work and school? Every spare moment is spent on thinking of shift routines and Petrarch's letters, profit and loss statements and More's "Utopia", disciplinary meetings with unionized staff and the themes and methods of Humanist Literature in the 16th century.

Really... when there is all of that, how could there be time for anything else?

But there are a few fun things to report:

1. Went to see Built to Spill again... they played "Perfect From Now On", and it was a fantastic show.

2. Celebrated my friend Ray's 40th birthday... and what a clusterfuck of wine drinking that was... I don't know if you're supposed to get that  hammered on multiple bottles of vino at a co-worker's birthday party with all his friends and family in attendance, but that is certainly what I did, and it seemed like we all had a good time. Granted, my perspective was somewhat skewed...

3. Snezan introduced us to "Underground", a titanic 3 hour film about Yugoslavia. Everyone should see this movie... they drink, yell, dance, lie, love, and suffer through 40 years of Communist dictatorship... and through it all they are constantly surrounded by gypsy street performers playing a drunken variation of the music "Beirut" is so clearly inspired by.... Awesome!

4. Bob Dylan released "Tell Tale Signs", and I think I might finally care to listen to Dylan again after a year long fascination with Neil Young. I haven't really gotten involved with Dylan's last two albums, and the brilliant 70's work by Young has taken up a lot of my time and interest lately... but this Bootleg Series always finds a way to share a new side of Dylan, and I like what I'm hearing.

5. My iPhone continues to run my life... I don't own it, it owns me.

6. As you can see from the picture above... I had a chance, after a doctors appointment, to bike by the MET and have a martini on the roof amongst a few works by Jeff Koons. A rare and lovely afternoon away from work.

And in the near future I will be attending a Dance performance involving a neighbor, midterms are fast approaching, and I am involved in a plan to actually take part in Halloween this year... the first time since I was 12. I will try to put up some pictures of that insanity after it all goes down.

So... that's all I have time for. I am now very late to work, but I felt a strong need to put something out on this blog. It's not very clever or well-worded... but its something to hold us over till I find the time and the passion to start blogging again.

Take care everyone.

August Recap

Well, its been a quiet month here on the ibellum blog... and there were good reasons for that. As the summer days began to fade into fall, a kind of frenzy over took me, and I tried to wrap my legs and arms around each day and struggle it to the ground and have my way with it. When such aggressive "living" is going on, there is little time to log on to a computer and comment about it. So, in the interests of world history, I've decided to recap a few highlights from the last month, in no particular order:

-Tapes&Tapes and the Black Keys in McCarren Pool Park

-Jessica's Birthday in Little Italy

-My Credit Card information was stolen for the first time

-Bob Dylan in Prospect Park

-Got an iPhone (and started to Loopt my life, rather than Blog it)

-Jessica's Softball team finished Second in the League this year

-Became even more obsessed with biking, and I'm about to ride to work for the second time this morning

-"Vicky Cristina Barcelona" was a masterpiece of a film... welcome back Woody!

-Teresa's, in Brooklyn Heights, was discovered to have cheap drinks and delicious pierogies

-Biked to the Astoria Beer Garden with Will, and discovered Miss Favela

-Watched them filming a scene of "Gossip Girl" at Columbia

-Finally started hanging out with our cool neighbors upstairs in 4C

-Welcomed Snezan to the neighborhood, and the hood is already better for it

Well... that's good enough, and I'm out of time. Peace in the Middle East.

rb

From Erotic, to Aerobic

At first, I think I'll let the picture speak for itself...

If you want to understand the picture, look below to read an excerpt from the New York Times article that accompanied this picture:

BEIJING — Clad in knee-high leather boots, spandex shorts and a sports bra, Xiao Yan struck a pose two feet off the ground, her head glistening with sweat and her arms straining as she suspended herself from a vertical pole.

“Keeping your grip is the hardest part,” she said. “It’s really easy to slide downward.”

Ms. Xiao, 26, who works as a supermarket manager, is one of a growing number of women experimenting with China’s newest, and most controversial, fitness activity: pole dancing.

“I used to take a normal aerobics class, but it was boring and monotonous,” Ms. Xiao said. “So I tried out pole dancing. It’s a really social activity. I’ve met a lot of girls here who I’m now close friends with.  And I like that it makes me feel sexy.”

A nightclub activity mostly considered the domain of strippers in the United States, pole dancing — but with clothes kept on — is nudging its way into the mainstream Chinese exercise market, with increasing numbers of gyms and dance schools offering classes.

The woman who claims to have brought pole dancing to China, Luo Lan, 39, is from Yichun, a small town in Jiangxi Province in southeastern China. Her parents teach physics at the university level.

Ms. Luo said she struggled in 20 different occupations — secretary, saleswoman, restaurateur and translator among them — before deciding to take a break. She traveled to Paris in 2006 for vacation. It was there that she first saw pole dancing.

“I wandered into a pub, and there was a woman dancing on the stage,” she said. “I thought it was beautiful.”

Those who embrace pole dancing for fitness are a snapshot of urban youths whose values are changing from those of their parents.

Jiang Li, 23, a pole dancing student; "A lot of people expect Chinese women to be subdued and faithful, that we should marry and take care of kids at an early age,” she said. “But I don’t think that way — I want to be independent. I’ve been studying traditional Chinese dance for many years, but this is totally different. I feel in control when I do this.”

-by Jimmy Wang

God bless fusion cooking, rule breakers and rule breaking, and cultural appropriation from all sides and in all things... and special blessings today on Luo Lan who took erotic performance art and turned it into a profitable aerobic exercise concept in a socially repressive country, bravo!