Trip writing

Dear readers,

As you might be able to tell I am about to give up numbering my adventures. This is until I can actually define to my self what an "adventure" is as they are not always as clear cut as slaying dragons.

Now for sheer brutal honestly I *dramatic drum roll followed by long and unnecessary pause*. Go on, take your pause even though I know you won't. I absolutely loved this trip. I loved the adventure in the Whitney, I loved the sculpture center, I loved PS1 and I loved the Krane Theater. If this trip has done anything for me I know have an idea, the next time I write for any film group that I also end up directing then I shall make everyone do my directions literally and see how that turns out. All I will need is a makeshift wizard and unicorn.

Currently searching for supplies,

Mike Hand

Dear readers,

Today is simply a random update (did you really expect anything else?) Well if you did then good because that first sentence was a lie.

In all reality I am writing this for one reason and that is to ask of Midas had donkey ears before or after he got the gold touch. However making a post simply asking that is one of the most boring things ever conceived so I will attempt to think of something else.

While on this topic then why not mythology? Ok let me speak about how insane mythology becomes when one actually thinks about how insane mythology is in the first place. To begin with the origin of all things is insane as either some supreme being calls it into existence, said being is a great turtle or said being walks out of a "Watery Abyss" (see Ra's birth in Egyptian mythology. And yes, the water speaks). Then there must always be a flood myth followed by tales about why we must be good or else the gods punish us by turning us into spiders (arachne) or if you kill your child you get subject to the torment of Tantulus (but only if you lie to the gods about it). Narcissus didn't get off any easier, he died after rejecting a male suitor who he didn't see as good enough for him and the only person he ever loved (himself) caused his own death. In some sense he didn't cause any death as it was his suitor's choice to commit suicide. Let it sink in for a minute, he was killed for deaths that was caused by people over reacting that the most beautiful sixteen year old said no. Did I mention that he was sixteen?

I am now ultimately convinced that we've been reading the wrong myths and that we need to read more myths with great turtles.

Hoping this was of interest,

Mike Hand

PiG frustration

Dear readers,

It has struck me that today I have not put up my conventional post. While I can just leave my post at that, that would be the rude thing to do. So instead I will talk about the PiG paper and how it makes me think that the government is sleeping right now.

First off for any of my readers do not know PiG stands for "Participation in Government". While it would seem that there are a hundred issues to choose from there really aren't. Think how many arguments that are made that use global warming as a clutch. The use of fossil fuels, recycling and the use of alternative energies. That's probably what you think of doing when you think of how government is trying to help us and most papers will probably be about how getting rid of fossil fuels and placing solar plants everywhere will save man kind. http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2110183/jinko-apologises-solar-plant-leak This is about a leak that originated from a solar plant and contaminated ground water in China. http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/the_global_warming_hoax_how_soon_we_forget.html

That is an article about Global Warming and how the idea of it is used by politicians to play the general population like an instrument to forward what ever goals they may have. So now we have counters to what you will be saying for a whole ten pages however to write about those is to be looked down upon because you are handing the paper not to people of science but to historians who simply listened to Al Gore and ignore all other arguments.

However it is not like these issues were what interested me. What I was interested in was what the federal government was doing against the discrimination of people who have autism and other like diseases. What I found was that there is a movement to lower the amount of chemicals we use in items that a pregnant woman would come into contact with to lower the chances of getting autism. While I'm all for just getting rid of harmful chemicals something struck me. What struck me was that while I have seen harmful words thrown at such people I saw no solution to that problem as if it was entirely ignored. Correction: it was entirely ignored.

Everyone has made a big deal about bullying and yet there is nothing about that on the internet. So maybe the internet just grew stupid but I'm guessing its the governments fault so I will do what my instinct tells me to always do: Blame a politician and put on punk music.

Hoping something here added to a library,

Mike Hand

Clarification

Dear readers,

I understand that I have some clarification issues which I plan to resolve here. First off I did not mean project anger as in the emotion. More so I meant a face of anger which to me is a completely different thing. I apologize it was late and I was tired.

Second off I did not mean to snipe anyone in the second part of my post. The person that part is about knows who he is and for obvious reasons I will not type the name how ever I am not in class with this person at all. I would agree that I need to apologize and forgive this person and I will take the time to do so now.

Once again, I apologize for any confusion I have caused,

Mike Hand

Adventure #6 Anger projection

Dear readers,

Today we were suggested to blog about things that bring about certain emotions. Given that I have already done horses, discussed pinkle and politics I must now have a new topic of discussion. And today this topic shall be people who think they are more important then they actually are.

While to an extent this does fall under small time politicians (most people don't care that you were once on school board but were voted off by the ignorant hillbillies of Herricks for example) however it is a far wider category of people. For example I was driving my friend home when I glance the person in the car in front of us flip us off for no reasons. I broke no laws, drove at the speed everyone else drove at and he had space between the two of us in case he had to stop. In short he had no reason to flip me off except that he believes us to be enemies. Do I care? Not at all. What bothers me is that he suddenly thinks that he is important to me. He has no reason to think this although my theory is that he has to compensate for his small ego.

Now this category does not end there but continues to any one not called a director who instead of giving me critical feedback says something completely stupid like "your over acting in Urinetown" (I will note here that when the rehearsals began I asked Tommie about how crazy I should be and he told me that he would stop me if I thought I got to crazy).

So keep in mind this when I project anger on you,

Mike Hand

Horses

Dear readers,

To be honest I have no idea what this post is going to be about at all. I could make a post about nothing however there is a problem with that. The problem is that to make a post about nothing would be making a post about something. You know what, let's talk about how we change the meaning of words and one other thing that has been on my mind which is how everyone can understand horse talk.

Seriously it does not take a whisperer. For example if two horses are always together then that is their herd like structure. If a horse tries to bite you then you've either done something wrong or the horse is a big meanie. If a horse cribs (term for when horses place their mouth on wood, arcs their neck and sucks in air) then they are bored, being detrimental to their health (can cause colic which is abdominal pain which is one of the leading causes of premature death in domesticated horses when related to the gastrointestinal tract), a sign of OCD and a sign of addiction (it can get them naturally high). There is also no magic cure all for the behavior and horses quickly learn it from one another.

Now what does that have to do with a post about how we change words? Absolutely everything because when you think of a druggie most people think of a person hiding under stairs in a condemned house shooting heroin. How ever I have just connected it to horses. Think about it, there really isn't much of a difference. I have only seen one place of hundreds even tolerant of cribbing so we have their a behavior that is frowned upon. It's bad for their health like many illegal drugs are for the health of people. And there is no way to instantly cure all people of addiction.

Really that is just one example but I'm going to stop there about atrocious behaviors that occur in horses because if I went with that it would take a while to finish.

Hoping you enjoyed,

Mike Hand

The color Pinkle

Dear readers,


I am sure you have just seen that title and decided that there must be something insane going on. Seriously, the color pinkle? Is that even a color?


The story behind it was that I was painting a hall over at my church and one of the colors we painted with was completely alien. The person pouring it onto the tray made it look like some sort of ectoplasmic trail left by ghosts in horror movies. None of us could tell if it was pink or purple so rather have a debate on the issue I simply called it pinkle and it caught onto atleast one other person.


So now for our amusement I will list the purposes of the color pinkle and all of its magical properties:


1. It's Pinkle
2. Unicorns eat it to survive
3. I still can't tell if it's purple or pink.


And I really need to stop typing this because the letter "p" is screwed up on this keyboard.


Hoping you enjoyed Pinkle,


Mike Hand

Edit: Made on 7/13/13. I overlooked an omission of the letter "p" in the word "completely". It only took over a year to notice...

WW1 and Art

Dear readers,

As it appears that all of you are in STAC I now know that I alienate no one by talking, almost, exclusively about STAC. Today is the obvious thoughts of war and art so let's give war and art a try.

War is a horrifying thing but public opinion influences ones view of war. War is more horrifying when society tires of the war. In other words we only think of the horror of war when it goes on to long and we are tired of the war being on going in the first place. At the beginning of a war the chances are that we would love the war and it would be reflected in the things we make. We would make great patriotic movies about how we are right and then maybe five years later when the public re thought their opinion we make a depressing film about war that horrifies people.

Now I will look at some historical context of WW1. It happened immediately because the head of a nation was killed in an assassination attempt by foreign anarchists. All of these participants, killers and victim, were from small and other wise insignificant (to me at least) European countries. How ever because everyone wanted to try out their air planes and mustard gas as weapons and no body could have predicted how much a success they were. Deadly gases were so, well deadly, that they were banned from war fare and had the words "chemical war fare" slapped on them. Currently chemical war fare is frowned upon by most large nations which are threats to each other and many small nations. In short nobody uses them because the big boys on the black say not to. I'm digressing. Because most European wars were fought in the open techniques such as charging were common how ever due to the new deadlier weapons it also meant certain death.

This certain death is what caused art to look at war and become horrified. It went from one day glorifying war to making absolutely no sense what so ever in order to show how war no longer has sense. When once you could face the enemy with honor you were now namelessly mowed down by machine guns if you were lucky. If you were unlucky deadly gases would get you. And so DADA was created.

Ok, that was more WW1 history of weapons then its influence on art so I'll sum it up in a sentence. WW1 had new and horrifying weapons which changed the definition of war, created new fears of war and influenced artists by causing them to make DADA to show how little sense the war made.

Hoping this post made sense,

Mike Hand

Adventure #5 Hat Thieving and Walking

Dear readers,

In this fifth adventure some of you probably can tell me what has effected me more and be correct: hat thieving or walking.

Let's start with what effected me the least: the hat. It's strange the hat effected every one on a deep emotional level but to me a hat is a hat and to my family it is a hat. It easily could have gone missing and no body would have cared or given a second thought. Maybe that is why the hat stealing did not send me into some deep spiritual journey.

To be honest something I do every day sent me on that task. And it's not like it is an under appreciated task; I often walk for long periods of time reflecting. So why is it that this time everything good and bad that has happened to me in a long time flood my head? Why is it that every significant thing I've heard; every important connection I've made in high school; many faces I saw once but have long forgotten have suddenly come back as if they are visiting me as a friend?

Some of these things I look back now and laugh so why was it that instead of laughing I felt how I felt then but amplified? Maybe there is no good reason or maybe there is only a good reason but at the end of the day that isn't what mattered: What mattered is that it happened. It reminded me not who I am or was but what I was and am.

We all sit down and wonder who we are but we always miss the other questions such as what we are. In the end the experience has left me content.

Hoping it has left you content to,

Mike Hand

Adventure #4 More DADA

Dear readers,

Good evening, this evening's post centers around more DADA. As we have already established DADA unrecognized is an evil grizzly bear but recognize it is a tasty ice cream cone of goodness.

Let's try an entire post as ice creamy goodness and no smelly grizzlies.

Because all my readers are in STAC (or at least that is my belief. If you are not please comment so I know) I shouldn't have to make it clear that I was in art. How ever I just did so this post will take your entire cone. First off we wrote manifestos, which while it sounds inherently communist, is not. Rather the communists put bad jives on the word, silly communists.

Once done with my manifesto I sat down and attempted to make the "art" as strange as possible. This is done by oil pastels, 3d objects, words that are out of order and/or blurred, possibly with little reason to be there and water color.

For example, I never thought cutting a "o" in half and putting them across from each other, making them 3d and then putting them at different angles. Next week I'm thinking some weird bridge thing. Not sure yet but hopefully will be next week.

Did that take all your ice cream? Yes? Good.

Good Night,

Mike Hand

Adventure #3 Attempt at Poking DADA with a Stick

Dear Readers,

This post is going to be all about DADA. In other words I shall write about nonsense. For example, my favorite nonsense question is "Is potato sauce Irish?" because who cares if potato sauce is Irish, especially when you probably didn't even know potato sauce existed.

Now to move on and actually talk about DADA it self and not nonsense because that clearly isn't working. First off DADA does not sound like a teddy bear so while discussing it I'm poking it with a stick, in the middle of winter and DADA is a five hundred pound grizzly bear. Did I mention the part about the grizzly?

DADA is simply another way at seeing the world and everyday objects. Sure to you this potato sauce is sauce but to me it is a prison in an alternate universe that contains the worst magic villains in existence. Or to you this is a chair but to me it would go perfectly well with bananas glued around the edges and with some glitter sprayed on the legs of the chair. May as well title it "Throne of the King" or something like that.

What purposes does glue, bananas and glitter serve a chair? The same purpose putting Christmas lights on a bike and hanging it on a ceiling do. The answer being non at all. So why do it? We do it because its fun. DADA is fun. DADA no longer a grizzly bear but an ice cream cone.

Hope you all enjoy your DADA ice cream cone,

Mike Hand

Adventure interlude #2 Thoughts based from Scott

Dear readers,

Today I feel not like discussing DADA, that shall be done at a later date. Today everything is about something Scott caused me to think about. Yes it was when he was talking about my hat and he high lighted the differences between the two of us (he wears a hat to show off while I seem to wear one for a deeper reason). This got me thinking about why I'm here and there happens to be a direct correlation to my hat in this.

As you know from a previous blog post politicians are not my favorite people how ever had it not been for politics I would not be here at the moment. Guitar and acting are all a supplement partially to one thing which is my writing and if it weren't indirectly for politics I would of never written meaning, in short, I would not be with you today. I'll let you judge if this is a good or bad thing.

Before I give you this story which will immediately take away all mystery that Scott may have surrounding my hat I will point out something very simple; I did not wear a hat when the story began. I didn't wear one until mid way through sophomore year. One more thing before I enter this story: this is a story untold and I'm leaving it here in writing. This is because horseback riding has taught me how important trust is: If the horse does not trust you he will bolt when spooked and you can get hurt.

So to begin the story I joined my first club in the high school because of my brother's interest in politics and he told me to join. The nervousness effecting other noobs effected me in another way. The nervousness made me want to speak. That club was Model Congress and while I was in a Creative Writing class at the time poetry did not find me until November of that year at the first congress when I returned inspired and wrote what was on my mind. Looking back it was terrible but for some reason other people loved it and have asked me to read it to this day as there is an apparent shortage of guys not scared to read poetry.

Now for the hat, in this club there was a man I respected very much. He was one of the greatest speakers I have seen and he would easily sway the opinions of many when he stepped on that floor and opened his mouth. The original hat was a gift from him and you shall see it later in the year.

Scott, I hope this answers any deep questions you have about why I where hat.

To everyone else please be well,

Mike Hand

Quotes

"Today was an interesting day"- Scott

"Sometimes I think the emotions we feel are false" -Ellen

"I am not this lonely blog" -Grace

"This year I am vulnerable but in a confident way" -Viviana

"What the hell is this?" -Jillian

"It's an icebreaker game, and a baptism"- John

"I've wanted to write and direct a play, and this year I'm going to do it." -Ilana

"There is much failure we have to do before success" -Luke

"...what's the point in having a blog with lies?" -Caitlin

"Reality was chaos in differently sized shapes and words" -Elisa

"I was expecting something like Mike Hand" -Kaitlyn

"But everyone seems dead honest in their posts, it seems" -Jei

"I think he has a whole secret agenda 99% of the time. I digress" -Matt

Adventure Pit Stop

Dear readers,

Before I say anything in this post please have a moment of silence as ten years ago today a few thousand innocent people died and if I was to type anything with out acknowledging crimes done against them I would be committing a crime myself.

I hope you stayed with me after that moment. The reason I have put that there is simple, everything to be said on the matter has been said in full and in detail and if I was to say anything on it I would be beating a dead horse. As such this post is not on 9/11.

I will like to assure you that quotes will be up quite soon. In this post I would like to discuss something else and that is that I have finished reading Derrida. So of course I'm going to try and figure out what I got from Derrida by trying to write about it in a blog post. I expect this to be a bit of a failure but let's try it.

First off he liked to deconstruct a word by looking at its meaning and then looking at what the roots of the word mean. He would then look at the deeper meaning this has for the word such as with "hospitality" he pointed out that it had hostile in it because hospitality cannot be true hospitality because you never give up power fully and instead people can only be hospitable when they are in control. So to be truly hospitable one must allow one into their home and allow the other to be at home instead of allowing themselves to be at an almost home. Nor can it be used to show off how much cool stuff you own to another person. At the same time you can't give everything away because that would be saintly and not hospitable.

And so he decided that to find the true meaning of a word one must look at its limitations and then command the word to exceed those limitations and invent itself anew. And thinking about that isn't that what artists do? How could art ever improve if one does not set their limitations ever higher. Sure when we were younger the cave paintings of a cave man look cool and N'Sync are the bomb but when we get older we set ourselves higher than that and may prefer Picasso to a caveman and most other things to N'Sync (or at least that is the case with my self).

Well then again art and philosophy are the same. They are connected. They are simply different ways of expressing the same thing. That thing which we all love and fear. The thing which some believe defines us as humans. The human soul.

And with that I wish you good night and you will be seeing more from this blog in a few hours,

Mike Hand

PS. We're all friends here, there is no reason to call me Mike Hand. Please just call me a variation of Mike or simply "Hand".

10 follower special

Dear readers,

While at the moment of writing I may be one short of 10 I see 9 as close enough and would like to celebrate this marker. First off I'd like to thank everyone for clicking the follow button. Second off I'd like to inform you that the content of this post will discuss one of the largest evils in the known universe. This nearly unspeakable evil is politics or more specifically how ridiculously early people start running for President.

For some background it will be necessary for me to tell you how I see a fundraiser hosted by a large name politician. A fundraiser to me is a half decent party where you invite people who you then over charge for a few drinks and then tell them that they better vote for you. In short you become the worst guess in the world.

Here is a list of declared, withdrawn, suspected and denied candidates of the 2012 election: http://2012.presidential-candidates.org/. There is more then a year until the 2012 election and there are currently over 20 candidates. Sure you may ask how that can be negative. It gets negative incredibly fast: First there is the money issue because if you have declared candidacy you are most likely touring the nation to get your name out there. Second we have an issue of what happens after people get tired of hearing your name. And third off what will someone do when they've exhausted most of the money by the time primaries come around.

That third one is particularly important to everything. You can be the best candidate in the world but the best candidate doesn't always win, the most popular with the most money will be the one to win. Keep in mind I'm just talking about the primary and nothing else. There are no people from other parties voting in this just people with nearly identical viewpoints to your own who have to choose between a few candidates of the same beliefs. So when you run out of money you have to fund raise how ever if the voters think you are an old washed up politician who they are tired of hearing about they will give you no money and you can say good bye presidency.

And all because you jumped into a race to early.

Hoping you enjoyed and/or actually cared,

Mike Hand

Adventure #1 Decorating School Walls

Dear readers,

First thing's first and that thing is a simplification of the TNG post. To put it more simply no psychologist knows what causes homosexuality and it is believed that some may control it. Therefore the ending is not a cop out but a showing of a psychological theory.

Second thing is that today I was reminded by how disorderly I am. Our assignment was to help decorate the school by creating word chains which work by writing something and then why we love it and when something is in common with each other we connect the chains. While every one else had nicely organized and pretty chains my chain was a chaotic jumble of thought that was pretty much one big mess compared to everyone else's.

It's not like I had high expectations out of this, I generally don't keep high expectations for anything, but out of chaos one can find order and through this I learned more then I could of expected. I learned exactly what I need to do. I'm not sure if it'll be easy but I'm sure it is easier to conceive of then to put into effect. What the "it" I refer to is organizing my thoughts in a coherent way with out a large amount of premeditation on a topic.

I hope you've enjoyed your time reading this post,

Mike Hand

Update

Dear readers,

Do you know how to posts ago I said that I was going to give you an exciting adventure on this blog? Of course you do but I have a confession, I have chosen to move that to another blog dedicated solely to that project so I never feel like I have slammed it down your throat. Now of course this project requires some explanation into what it is. The story behind it is that the previous writer, Jared Charnov, approached me with a story he had been writing and asked me if I'd like to take the story over and because I am never one to avoid a perceived challenge have accepted the task. Today the first story has gone up at cosmicwarsaga.blogspot.com. This title is only temporary for know as the project is not fully complete how ever I know exactly where it will end. Now do not think this blog will become barren as I will continue to have semi regular updates between these two blogs with this blog focusing on thoughts and reflections while the other focuses on what I write for the story.

Sincerely,

Mike Hand

Star Trek TNG reflection

Dear Readers,

I'm going to attempt a reflection on a heavy episode of Star Trek TNG. Let's see what we have:

The episode with the aliens of no gender. At first glance it would appear to possibly be about how people would deal with other people who are different and my first thought upon the first time I ever saw this episode ever was "this has to be about illegal aliens and immigrants". But it absolutely isn't and I don't know why I ever thought that when the issue to begin with was about gender. What really has to be talked about is the ending. The question we were asked in class was whether or not it was a cop out and while my answer could take a sociological approach (The effects the people around the person have on the persons decisions) I will attempt a psychological approach (The effect of an individual's mind on their decisions). My source shall be an article written by the APA (seen here: http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/sexual-orientation.aspx). Now there are a few reasons I thought the end was not a cop out, for example "most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation" which is all caused by nature and nurture of an individual. However the keyword there is "most" which is because people studying homosexuality have no idea what causes it which means there could be several different ways for its causation. Perhaps one of these ways is choice at least on a subconscious level and no longer is it so insane that some therapy would make Soran the same as the rest of her species (having no orientation) but created a perfect balance to the rest of the episode which showed Soran being a functioning member of her society (despite what would have been discrimination against her had she been open) and her coming out speech (which show case the thoughts of many liberals as to why homosexuals are happy as they are, require no cure and don't choose to be that way), thereby not making the end a cop out as the writers simply show cased a rebuttal which all good arguments do however instead of choosing a winner they allow the watcher to choose a winner and hand power to the viewer. I would like to state now that I am not saying that everything I just wrote is necessarily true as the jury is still out on causation but it is a theory which I believe fits the episode very well.

Thank you for reading,

Mike Hand

Welcome

Dear my valued readers,

First off this post is a welcoming post and is nothing special but please do not let that stop you from pressing the follow button. In fact I promise that by the end of the week I will have two stories up that will have people asking questions about the fictional world it is set in.

Of course to you I am probably a total stranger who is asking you to "follow" me. Now this probably seems creepy but I'd like to assure you that I am as strange to myself as I am to you.

What I promise you is excitement and adventure. Comedy and tragedy. For all of our sake I will do my best to deliver effectively on every promise I just made.

Know declaring this blog officially opened,

Michael Hand