Living in Pictures.

Throughout eighth grade and high school I was one of (if not thee, imho) preeminent photographers at Chaminade College Preparatory, St. Louis, MO.

I loved the time I spent after school, bathed in orange light, reeking of stop bath and listening to the Velvet Underground (see SoKT). For those hours I might as well have been living in NYC in 1967.

As a film student in college I didn't find much time for still photos; and oddly (pathetically?) enough for moving ones either.

Well after Boston and towards the end of my East Nashvillian days I purchased a Holga 120 CFN. I used it to take some square pictures.

Now living in DC and letting the Internet consume more and more of my time, I have been itching for a digital camera that I cannot quite afford.

On the 30th of December, 2006 I was hanging at the Naschmarkt in Wien with friends and family when I purchased a new (used) Ashai Pentax Spotmatic SLR. Its a gorgeous piece of work - and works great!

In line with this new shutter-bugginess I have finally started uploading images to my two-year old Flickr account. I must say, I really do like the way these film photos scan -- so much so that I am cool putting off digital-ness for the time being.

Enjoy.

Seegerdom.

It is with great excitement that I announce both my recently obtained concert tickets and Knock Twice's first ever giveaway.

No thanks to Ticket Master I was able to score four free tickets* to the Seeger Family Tribute at the Library of Congress. Mostly this is exciting because it is offers a rare opportunity to see Pete Seeger live. For those that don't know, Seeger is one of the greatest voices in American Music and perhaps the country's most important 'folk musician'. If you have the time I highly recommend you check out The New Yorker bio on the man -- courtesy of Pete's own site.

As for the giveaway -- I have one ticket to giveaway to whomever wants it -- you have just got to convince me you are the right person. Email me here with attempts. BTW -- the concert is on Friday March 16, 2007 at 8:00 pm.

Also -- when I get home I will post a Pete Seeger song to the SoKT.

* Although the tickets were free, Ticket Master charged me an unnecessary 3.75 for each ticket. Shame on the LOC for pandering to the monopoly.

B-Boys.

From the Oxford English Dictionary:

Brit. / bib/, U.S. /bib/ Also with lower-case initial(s). [Origin uncertain; prob. < b- (in BREAK n. (cf. slightly later break-dancing s.v. BREAK- II) or in BEAT n.¹) + BOY n.¹ Perh. cf. earlier B-GIRL n.

The term is sometimes attributed to the Jamaican-born U.S. disc jockey ‘Kool Herc’ (Clive Campbell, b. 1955), whose technique of prolonging the instrumental breaks in records by mixing back and forth between two copies on twin turntables is said to have given rise to break-dancing in the late 1970s.]

Originally: a male break-dancer. Now more generally: a young man involved with hip-hop culture. Freq. attrib.

Thank you OED. Sometimes pictures speak louder than words.

And other times, music speaks louder than pictures (check out this tune on SoKT).

from the Leopold to the Modern.

Vienna's Museumsquartier is an excellent place to see art(ifacts) from the uniform that Franz Ferdinand was wearing when shot to Egon Schiele's portraits and images of mutilation from Austrian born conceptual artists.

One of the museums on the Museumsquartier campus is the Leopold, a contemporary gallery that focuses on the paintings of famous Austrians, like Schiele and the ever loved by college dorm rooms Gustav Klimt. The Leopold is also currently showing an excellent photo-expose taken by an Austrian photojournalist who covered the Hungarian revolution.

The austerely cubical Leopold is a nice building, tall ceilings, open spaces, and an occasional glass floor. In the picture below, taken by my mother, you can see people looking out a window at the Leopold. Framed by the spectators you can see a gray structure, the Modern, with a house falling off the top.


I love this picture taken by my mother and I like Modern's building. I also enjoyed the house frozen in tumble, an Erwin Wurm creation. I was less impressed by Mr. Wurm's collection found within the Modern. I personally feel that he was unsuccessful in realizing his concept in his art. A fatal flaw to me -- but most others in the gallery, including my family, thoroughly enjoyed the expose.

In Heidelberg, DE kids skate with penguins.