Children Only

Gizmodo wrote about a poster commissioned by an agency in Spain that manages a hotline for kids and teens who are experiencing abuse. The poster has two different messages. The first one is directed at adults and includes a picture of an average-looking young boy. The SECOND message shows the same boy, but beat-up and bleeding. Under this picture it says, “If somebody hurts you, phone us and we’ll help you,” with the number to the agency’s hotline. The thing about this second image/message: It’s only visible to children under the age of about 10 (or anyone shorter than 4 feet, 5 inches), based on some kind of craaazy technology that alters a picture depending on which angle you see it from. I CANNOT STOP WATCHING THIS VIDEO and turning it over and over in my head. What a great idea! What if there were MORE ways to empower children experiencing abuse (instead of trusting adults to “notice signs” and report suspicions)? How could we help, say, even younger kids or ones who otherwise don’t fit the “under-10-and-reads-well” demographic? What about for teens? What about for kids experiencing abuse with no outward physical signs, like sexual abuse, for instance? How could we send secret messages to THEM? AGGGH, THIS IS BRILLIANT.

life in fast forward

I never enjoy anything, I’m always waiting for whatever’s next, I think everyone’s like that, living life in fast forward, never stopping to enjoy the moment, too busy trying to rush through everything, so we can get on with what we’re really supposed to be living with our lives.

I get these flashes of clarity, brilliant clarity, where, for a second I stop and I think “Wait, this is it. This is my life. I’d better slow down and enjoy it, because one day we’re all going to end up in the ground, and that will be it. We’ll be gone”.

Mr. Tambourine Man

I'm a huge fan of Bob Dylan, and have listened to his songs almost daily for years. They keep me company when I'm bored - the best part of listening to Dylan is following the imaginary characters he creates in his songs, doctors, lovers, chicken, Johanna, Bob's idiot wife, the rich man, the tambourine man, and countless more are in his great songs. 

Maybe I will always be a fan of him, because he talks like a poet and sings of rebellion.

Leave Behind

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote “time heals all wounds” but what he failed to mention was the scars those wounds leave behind. The painful things that happen to us permanently leave their mark. They don’t necessarily hurt anymore, but they’re always there as a reminder, as a memory. And as time passes maybe the memory gets a little fuzzy. But we always have the scar to remind us it happened, that we lived through it, that we survived. 

nothing and therefore everything

At university, something happens pretty much every day. I am glad. But it usually takes just 24 hours for it to lose its importance because something else has happened. University is permanent distraction.

I sometimes miss spending entire days in my head, having the space to think about nothing—and therefore everything. I try in vain to get back to that zone whenever I’m sitting outside by myself. I used to enjoy the sounds of Commute line trains going past every few minutes and the children at playtime in the kindergarten next to my campus building, but now I don’t even notice them—they’re just noise.

I’ve  been a part of college student for 2 years, and now my lives are so intimately entangled. By far the most complicated thing to manage is everyone’s romantic lives. It all feels very futile and confusing, but maybe living like this is a kind of jump-start on life. Things begin and end very quickly and we doubt there will be happy endings all around. 

Legally Free Music!

I am a huge fan of legally free music on the internet, and NPR’s First Listen is bookmarked on my computer. The show premieres full-length albums before their actual release dates. New ones are added weekly, and this week they’re streaming Typhoon’s White Lighter. Typhoon is the brainchild of Kyle Morton, from Portland, Oregon, but the band itself (above) is a big, noisy ensemble of constantly changing members. Their album is the kind that screams FALL to me and makes me really excited for the upcoming months. NPR also is streaming Valerie June’s debut album, Pushin’ Against a Stone, which is mellow and rich and perfect to listen to on a Saturday afternoon.

Tunes for Travellers

Great music for road trips, vacation, or just letting your mind wander hither and thither

Tunes for Travellers from hannanbatarfie on 8tracks Radio.

MOVIE : SUBMARINE

Don’t let the name deter you—submarines don’t really come into play (then again, sorry to disappoint any submarine enthusiasts out there). It’s a story about a teenage boy, Oliver Tate, who finds “that the only way to get through life is to picture [himself] in an entirely disconnected reality.” (We immediately clicked.) He’s on a quest to impress a girl, but also to unlock his own identity: “I’ve tried flipping coins, listening exclusively to French crooners—I’ve even had a brief hat phase, but nothing stuck.” 

It starts working out with Jordana, an angsty, red-duffle-coat-wearing pyromaniac, but things fall apart with both of their families, and soon the happy relationship turns sour. The film is like a mix between Wes Anderson’s crisp tableaux and precious home footage. It covers a load of scary themes—heartbreak, cancer, depression, bullying, infidelity—but there’s a perfect balance of charm, and it made me want to write letters, swap books, make mixtapes, get a working Polaroid camera, shoot short films, run on a beach, set off fireworks,and send a paper boat down a river.

The past that nothing else matters

Most of my days now are spent re watching movies, writing or lying aimlessly in bed with my little brother. For once I am content, but I’m confused. There are moments where I lose myself in my mind, when everything around me dissolves and I feel like a character in an unfinished story, sitting by idly until someone comes along and tells me where to go next. I feel unsettled, like if I don’t talk to someone soon, and fast, then I may or may not be shackled to my thoughts, which is one of the worst punishments ever. 

Does this happen to other people? I worry that if I tell someone how I feel, they will think there is something wrong with me. Maybe there is. (I hope not.) And I feel like voicing something makes it real, and I don’t want this to be real, especially if other people won’t know what I mean. I want them to know what I mean, to say, “Whoa, that happens to me, too!”

Is it possible to live in a memory? Is it possible to lose yourself there, just let yourself be so consumed by the past that nothing else matters, least of all the tattered shreds of the present? I think that is what has been happening to me. I am straddling the line between what has been and what is. It makes it hard to do what I have been trying to do for what feels like forever: move forward.

When Björk Met Attenborough

Last weekend in the UK, some local TV premiered the documentary “When Björk Met Attenborough" (thankfully also posted on youtube). In other words, one of my favorite minds in the world of music (Björk) united with one of the most lovable broadcasters/naturalists (David Attenborough, who is also arguably a poet). The show focused on the relationship between music and nature, as well as Björk’s quest to make music more intuitive through the use of science and technology, particularly in her latest project, Biophilia. There were cymatic experiments, which involved making music with lightning and gravity, plus previously unreleased behind-the-scenes footage of rehearsals for the Biophilia tour. It unwrapped just one tiny layer of the mystery behind the project, helping me appreciate and understand it even more than I thought I already did—while leaving just enough of the magic secret.

Aubrey Plaza as Daria!!

There is no doubt that you have done one of the following: 1) compared Aubrey Plaza to Daria, because they both have perfected the art of being deadpan and sarcastic; and/or 2) wondered what might have happened to Daria—and all the other eccentric characters in her life—after she left the hellhole that was Lawndale High. College Humor made wishes come true with this trailer for Daria: High School Reunion starring—you guessed it—AUBREY PLAZA. Sadly, the movie doesn’t actually exist, but those few minutes watching Aubrey as Daria are worth it. And who knows? With all the positive responses to the clip, this movie could become a reality. As Daria herself would say:

No Exaggeration

Lately, the way I listen to music goes like this: I find one song by an artist that really hooks me and I will, no exaggeration, listen to just that song on repeat for 2-3 days. Then, I'll ultimately get sick of it and it will be forgotten in my media player library. I'm listening to music on a song by song basis and rarely listening to entire albums. If I do, it's because it's REALLY amazing or because I have to for editing reasons. It's a shame. I don't know why I force myself to listen to a great song so many times it drives me mad, but I do.

One of the songs I've been listening to on repeat the past week is "Rivers and Roads" by The Head & The Heart & “Festival” by Sigur Rós. I want to make a "Tunes for Travellers" playlist for my 8tracks account, so naturally I thought "what's the perfect song for road trips while letting your mind wander hither and thither?" and these song immediately came to mind. Every once in awhile I'll forget about a favorite band. Sigur Rós is one of those bands. I have every single Sigur Rós album but it's not something I listen to casually. You have to really be in a certain mood to listen to a lot of Sigur Rós. For one thing, it's can calm you mind and thoughts but sometimes it sort of depressing just to listen to it. For some of the songs, you have to be in a really regretful/grieved/rejected feelings, and oddly these songs can soothe you. Anyway, here are some of my favorite Sigur Rós songs because god damnnn I love them.

3 HOURS

I love walking out of exams and smiling at everyone thinking WE ARE EQUALS WE JUST DID THAT SAME EXAM TOGETHER WE ALL LIVE SUCH DIFFERENT LIVES BUT FOR 3 HOURS WE WERE THE SAME 

Tiny Distant Flags

Un jour, notre jeunesse sera derrière nous

Someday Our Youth Will Be Behind Us

There is a voice grown-ups reserve for little boys and girls—they pull their words out of hats and infuse them with joy and wonder, transforming them into seesaws and swing sets, cotton candy and carousels, toy trucks and train tracks, bunny ears and doves. Sometimes one has to wonder if they remember this voice from their own childhood, from afternoons at the park waiting for rainbows and magic, from houses with airy kitchens and sunny porches, from their grandfather’s lap, his hands leathery and smelling of smoke. One has to wonder just how much they remember.

On rare occasions it is the same voice they use on bigger boys and girls like us, but those moments are so few and far between that we tend to forget, and anyway those voices are lost to the sounds of slamming doors, engines rumbling to life, fingers flying over a keyboard.

And yet, a promise: we will hear this voice again from our own selves, in the future. We will reserve it for people we love— sad grown men and women who might need to feel like children again—and we will take good care of one another, because that is mostly what we have learned through the years. We will listen for the chance to recognize in one another our smaller, simpler selves.

Someday our youth will be tiny, distant flags behind us and we will tell our sons and daughters that when the world is too big, and everyone just wants to be larger than life, it helps to feel little again.

away they're goes

"I hate that i sabotage things when they're good - because i think everything good goes away"

Rainy Day Tunes

A soundtrack to your cozy indoor rainy-season solitudes in the rainy season. Optional atmospheric percussion supplied by rain pounding on roofs and windows.

rainy day tunes from hannanbatarfie on 8tracks Radio.

Artificial

Lately, after years spent sleeping with a light on, I’ve been enjoying the sensation of lying in natural darkness—it feels smooth and cave-like. Some light seeps in through my thin bedroom curtains, and I wonder how much of it is man-made, and how it compares to millions of years ago, when some distant ancestor of mine slept outside. No houses, no bricks or tarmac. Imagine that. Imagine living by the natural cycles of the moon and sun and stars.

Everything seems quite grey at this point, and so artificial. The constant mechanical groan of cars makes me feel sick. I am tired of urban life. It is dull. Cars and roads and buses all look the same. The weather is hot and dry and I keep longing for a torrent of rain, and that swimming sensation I adore: limbs stretching through atoms, rippling blue, while I use my muscles to glide through. Something to crack open the stillness of April.

But it’s time to accept that while campus is grey and boring, there is no other way. I can embrace hard work—it is finite, and after months of seeing no end in sight, it finally feels that way. I don’t want to rebel against it. I am itching for forward motion, but I also like listening to Björk sing, “I don’t know my future after this weekend / And I don’t want to.” I keep reminding myself about what i thought at the start of the new year—that you can’t make many plans in life, and the not-knowing is OK

Anxiety

This week has been a little tougher than what I’ve been used to lately. But I know, and I keep repeating in my head, that there are ups and downs to everything in life―including anxiety. There’s been a lot of it recently, and it’s a huge black blot on my mind. When general anxiety comes on like this, it’s both surprising and familiar, like when someone hugs you from behind and you feel uncomfortable because you don’t know who it is. But I do know what it is. I can’t see it, but I can feel it. I now understand the power that anxiety wields in my life. I suppose this means I am no longer walking blind, just wondering why things are so hard.

I wish I didn’t think about anxiety so often. It seems to be the main thing flowing from my fingers right now though. It’s taking over, affecting my life, intercepting every other thought, occupying the muscles in my forehead and neck and shoulders, destroying my appetite, ruining my conversations. It can make me selfish and short-sighted. I close myself off from the world. I know it’s hard for other people to understand; sometimes even I can’t understand.

I know I can be better at controlling how much it affects me, but recently I’ve lost my grasp a little. I’ve let it take over more than I should have. And as always, life flows on without me, not stopping to let me catch up. Like all the times before, I just have to pick myself up and hope that the people around me and the world in general will not stop giving me a chance to do better. I have to hope that I will give myself a chance to do better. I wonder whether there will be a day when I no longer have to talk about it.

Don’t Look Back!

Once-beloved songs ruined by heartache.

These are some songs i used to love, but then it attached itself to some experience that is now too painful for me to think about, and i can’t even listen to these song anymore. Here they are:

don't look back from hannanbatarfie on 8tracks Radio.

ICELAND

Inspired by Island

Inspired by Iceland is a new project by the Icelandic government that encourages people to travel to Iceland and not be too scared of volcano's. Don't you love this video that they made? (emm except for the indecent part - sorry for that) The filming is incredible, and, oh, those glaciers! 

Well i would love to go to Iceland someday. Reykjavik, good music, overwhelming nature, hot springs and northern lights above me.

16 Years Later... THE PASTELS!

Sixteen years have passed since the Scottish indie pop godfathers The Pastels released their last album,Illumination. And now they are back! But this isn't the kind of comeback that you are used to seeing with many 80s legends. In fact, The Pastels never split up, they have just been working at a very very slow pace, so it's another step in their career. It wouldn't be fair to say that they have been laying on their backs since 1997, because they have produced interesting film soundtracks (The Last Great Wilderness, 2003) and small jewels (like the excellent collaboration with Tenniscoats called Two Sunsets, 2009). Slow Summits, though, is the first proper full LP by Stephen and Katrina in a long time and it's worth celebrating.

The album was recorded in Glasgow with a band featuring classic collaborators such as Gerald Love (Teenage Fanclub), Tom Crossley, Allison Mitchell and John Hogarty, plus the original pastel Aggi and Norman Blake (also from Teenage Fanclub). Highly recommended!

Awesome People - Mathilde Aubier

Mathilde Aubier is an incredible illustrator and designer. This French lady is giving graphic design a complete different meaning with her artful and peculiar work. I'm head over heels for her illustrations and the undeniably amazing work she's performed for some of my favorite sites. Click here and be amazed!

VISUAL

It's not a secret. I am completely and exaggeratedly infatuated with Pinterest. This trusty and magical relationship started when last year I found myself knee-deep in work  for 3 days in a row. That was the hardest week for me. ever. All I did was work, eat and sleep a couple of hours every day. As I started looking for little bits of distraction I found that pinning rocked my world. I'm a very visual person so all the things I store in there actually inspire my daily life.  This week I'm loving:

01. Andy Warhol 02. Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsborg 03. La Bicylette

04. reveur 05. The Smiths 06. reveur

Random Thought

  
  

There are dreamers and there are realist in this world, you'd think the dreamers would find the dreamers and the realist would find the realist, but more often than not, the opposite is true. You see, the dreamers need the realists to keep them from soaring to close to the sun. And the realist... well, without the dreamers, they might not ever get off the ground

Random Thought

Just a random thought in the middle of night….  

Our World is like the Heavens. 

What am I talking about? 

Well its like this. People are like stars. You can see them from far away and they leave an impact for all to see. There are all kinds of stars. Big, Small. Some are known, named. Some are part of groups, galaxies, clusters. Some are solitary, but still shine bright.   

There are also heavenly bodies that we can't see. Some, like planets and moons, may revolve around stars, but for the most part exist with very little fanfare. They can also bring meaning to the stars the revolve around. An audience, following, fans, of sorts.

Some individuals are comets, traveling their own paths, not bound to the same immediate order that most other bodies are. They don't come around often, only just enough four you catch a glimpse.  Some people are like Meteors. Existing on the fringes, sometimes crashing into other matter for no apparent reason, other than to remind you that they do exist. And sometimes, make you realize how fragile your own existence maybe.   

Just a rumination...