Thursday, August 30, 2007

Web2forDev - Sparking a Movement?

Cross-posting from our corporate blog...
Sounds a bit promo, but the enthusiasm is real ;) Nice when you can write about your work and it comes gushing out easily. Never mind the additional workload and the pushing out of mental sight all the things that I am neglecting to do because of picking this up.
Roma.. Pippa, Dom and Beanie - Vengo!

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

The Floris Series: Floris @ the Art Exhibition...

Caballero o Vaquero?
Pandering to your ego, or showing off what I like to see?
Both are counterproductive to our higher quests, but hey.
I give thanks ;)

The Promise of Tango
During the days spent in the southern Spanish lands my appetite was whet.. for dancing .. entwined but distant.. passion seeping through the seems of carefully crafted poses.. the tension of beautiful strangers, the fantasy of intimacy.
Tango, Flamenco, red and black, and fire and earth. I long for it already and still.
Watch Vengo and hear the gitana Caita's voice cry out. Yasmin Levy and Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tuni, and the haunting wind instruments. Dancing on pick up trucks and arabic carpets under olive trees and next to the uninhabited lakes we drove around. All songs from the soul, about homeland, the heart, sadness, longing, a place of belonging. I remember the straight faces at the open air concert at the fort in Cádiz, deceiving me into believing that the people around me weren't touched by the music. I closed my eyes and felt engulfed by the rhythmic clapping pulsating through me, I was surrounded by it, I heard nothing else. Not even the music, only the passion expressed though intricate and call-and-answer clapping. I was profoundly touched. I listen to the Bularías from Jerez, and I am not afraid of feeling; I long for it.

Today I re-discovered something that jilted me out of my haze, something that triggered my heartstrings and made me want to discover music, made me want to make and share music, made me want to rediscover the ways in which music inspires me and shapes me.
Her name is Hindi Zahra, and when I hear her, I want to be her.
Childish I know. But I want to never lose childish innocence, I hope to regain more of it as days and weeks pass, and to allow it to blossom. Aspiring to be someone I admire, I pray will keep me rooted and help me grow. Roots Tango. aahh.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Soapstone Homer
back from being away.. offline, and the SMS-blog option wasn't tried nor tested. Mea culpa.
For evidence of the hard work achieved and blood and sweat spent during the 3.5 weeks of offline heaven, have a look at the Flickr pics, and remember, Envy is a Sin ;)


As a first quick post of sharing what trickles into my life, this video about Soapstone Homers and Marges seems an appropriate lighthearted come-back, with a bit of a bitter aftertaste for some of the more geo-politically sensitive among us.
Welcome to a Kenyan village, welcome to really dedicated handicrafts, welcome to income-generating opportunities, and welcome to global outsourcing of labour-intensive Simpsons merchandise... video