Faces of Lightening in the Bottle

E and I went down south to the Lightening in a Bottle Festival.

happy camera

Last week was a long week, but I must've had some kind of astrological windfall, because I got paid up for a lot of work from several of my freelance jobs at once. That meant it was a good camera weekend! I bought a portrait lens with my earnings. Nothing fancy (50mm, 1.8), but I've already gotten some use out of it. We did some shooting at a very important project on Sunday. My friend is involved with a school that is starting in South Central. I'm going to make the website look magnifique with lots of pictures.

There were some great characters there. Some of these were shot with the new lens. Some are from Manzanar two weeks ago. All are gentlemen.

bad dog

Will I get back to California? 

Let's hope the TSA are feeling merciful. 

On second thought, enjoying family here too much to go back anyway.

people from Cambodia

Thank you for checking out the Cambodian New Year pictures. Since we are celebrating and all, I thought I'd pull out a couple of pictures from my past trips to Cambodia for you to see. Really this is just an excuse for me to look at them. I do miss the sights, sounds, smells, and people.. especially the people from Cambodia. It's driving me a little mad, but then I won't get into all that.

I know what you are thinking, "Oh no the poor cat!" 

This little thing was such a trooper.

He is the quintessential little boy with bugs in his pockets 
and a mischievious grin. 

 

They call her grandmother even though she's only in her fifties. 

She works at a coffee shop and always has a big pair of galoshes on.

 

Met him on Silk Island where they make many of the famous Khmer scarves. 

Some people just have naturalstyle.

 

This is a very sad one. She is the mother of at least six children. 

They live at the city's landfill. This was her newborn. 

I told her the baby was beautiful. She told me I should take it.

 

This little imp is trouble, but in a good way. 

Before she was living on the streets, so she's tough. Not an ounce of fear.

 

This is just for fun. You may or may not recognize the one in yellow. ha! 
They worked for hours to do make-up and hair. The only extentions they had were black - so they had to make my brown hair look like highlights. By the end all of the women thought I was half-Cambodian. Amazing what a little make-up can do.

It was like an alternate dimension. Looking in the mirror, I was horrified. I thought two things: who is this crazy person, and I will be ridiculed when I go downstairs to this party. I was so wrong. Our ideas of beauty are so different. It's really fascinating. Everywhere I went at the wedding people stopped me and told me how beautiful I looked. And not just, "You look pretty." They gawked, "Oh My Gosh, You are SO Beautiful. So Beautiful. I can't believe it." They would just stand there and hold my hand. It was the trippiest, funniest thing ever.  

sousadey chnam thmey

I have a couple of pictures to share from Cambodian New Year in Long Beach on Saturday.

I will tell you, it was a hero's trial trying to get into this festival. We wanted to ride our bikes, but were stopped by bulky security at the entrance. No biking or walking, can you believe that? You had to drive your car into the park and clutter up the grounds with vehicles. You'd think a city sponsored event would encourage eco-friendly transportation.

Aside from that, it was fairly expensive, which made the whole scenario so strange. Biking back to the car via the aqueduct, we passed tons and tons of Cambodians trying to sneak into the event from the fields behind the park.

Apsara dancers 

Apsara are mythical celestial dancers that date back thousands of years. You can see the carvings of apsara on the temple walls at Angkor Wat. It's not the only form of dance in Cambodia, but I think it is probably the most popular. The movements are very subtle and graceful. Each pinch of the finger is full of symbolism relating to harvest and myths from ancient Angkor. Though the steps are simple, the form is very important. Little girls begin training as early as five, memorizing the precise posture and stretching their hands and feet daily to create the graceful bend. 

This is one thing I love about Cambodia. Even though the country is struggling with poverty, corruption and the aftermath of devestating genocide, still the people appreciate and love art. Music and dance thrive. 

We met this sweet singer after her performance. There was one song that J particularly liked (he likes to remix the songs too).

We dug through the CDs and DVDs at all of the outdoor vendors. Karaoke videos are a priceless piece of Cambodian culture. The music video industry in Cambodia is huge. They have pop stars that are household names no matter where you go, and ongoing video series that you can collect. We dug through so many, but couldn't find The song.

As we were scoping out the food stalls, we got into a conversation with an enthusiastic volunteer from Project Angkor, an organization that provides medicine to people in rural areas. We talked for a bit, then he took off and returned a few minuets later with a ton of food (and coffee : ) From that point at least three different groups of people offered to either buy or give us food. The generosity never fails to amaze me.

Two women across from us were smugging liquor in water bottles and kept telling us, "Shhh. Do you want some? Yeah? Shhh." They were eating crawfish. One woman was saying, "When I cook, mine are better. But I cry!" I thought she was talking about the bad crawfish she was eating, but then she said. "I cry! They came out of the pan, and I cried. I had to put the top on. So I don't make them anymore.... but I still like to eat them." She gave the funniest look, "what can you I do?!"

The event was a field day for kids. There were tons of games and activities for them.

 Probably the highlight for me - the costumes

As I was taking pictures, I ran into the designer (on the right) who was there promoting her new business. I wasn't able to do a proper interview as I would've liked, but I did get to ask her a few pertinent questions.

Name: Angkeara Brang
Business: Angkeara Bridal
Hometown: Phnom Penh, Cambodia, now living in Long Beach
How long have you lived in Long Beach? ten years
How long have you had this costume business? for 5 months. It is still new.
How long does it take to make a costume? usually 3 days to sew
Where did you learn to sew? I learned in Phnom Penh. I began sewing when I was 18 years old. I also worked in Malaysia and New Zealand.
Where do you get your fabric? I import most things from Cambodia, but I also have a shop here in Long Beach (1638 E. Anaheim St.)
And the metal pieces? I import those from Cambodia also, but I do the designs myself or give the designs for them to be made
Who are your customers? Most are for dance and bridal
How can we find your work? I have a website; we are still working on it. www.angkeara.com

under the lights at nokia

Thank you all for your comments! I've got some nice shots, but ahhh I can't show them because they are reserved for future promos. Anyhow hope this will suffice. How about some zebra print?

E had her own huge dressing room with snazzy print floors.

It brought out the rockstar in us; we had to throw a couple lamps. hehe

Getting the head piece on...

Her make-up artist for this show (Marian Filali) created some pretty incredible feather lashes.

and here are the designs! Those shoes are so fun to wear.

 ready for stage..

Officially the unofficial photographer: the managers said I could get on the other side of the stage and photograph from the curtain. The problem though.. a huge piano. My only shot would be black enamel.

I got in the front and dodged the camera crew. It was kind of funny moving with the rig guys, trying not to mess up their kazillion dollar shots. Every once in a while the crew turned the cameras and panned on the crowd. When that happened, I had to jump in a seat and look normal. At one point I thought they were done panning so I hopped up. Just then they turned and BAM I was caught in the shot. Elly's manager said, he was watching the stage then looked up at the big screens just in time to see my deer in headlights look.

Seth MacFarlane crooned away for the rest of the night. (Note the conductor is Joel - the wizard from the other studio shots). The band was fantastic. You don't often hear that quality of jazz and big band live.

Before MacFarlane came out on the stage, you should know the emcee got up and had the audience do a couple fake laughs for the cameras and then some wild clapping that would be later spliced into the final edited version. Got to love the fabricated laugh tracks. Especially when Seth came out on stage talking about how he and Elizaveta had a problem, because they both ended up wearing the same hat to the show that night. Funny Guy or not, there is something to be said for making a scene. Sara Bareilles performed all of the duets in the show with MacFarlane, but the reviews from KPCC the next day didn't even mention her. Instead they dedicated a lengthy passage to Elizaveta. I guess when you get your chance, you have to go for it.

*All or nothing

*(Listening to nothing but Steve Marriott this week) 

Nokia Show

We had a super fun run last night at the Nokia show. The costume came out great, Elly wowed the audience, I dodged cameras to take pictures. Plus, Baptise let me use his prime lens so I got some great shots. More to come...

in the workshop..

..and I can't get any good new music (aside from you Milo). Pandora is letting me down and I've exhausted my current playlist. Pop/hop is too glossy and synthetic. But everything else new is sounding too hipster-y. It's the purposefully lo-fi production and off-key singing - the novelty has worn off.

I guess it's back to the annuals of history..



.not history but still love her..

Draught in my musicland.

see you on the other side

Costume design for a show later this month are underway. Before I put everything together, I thought I'd take a few pictures.

We scavenged some bags full of prettiness from the Fashion Disctrict downtown. Until now I had never spent much time down there. That was probably a good thing. Because, wow, if I had a million dollars I'd stock a warehouse full of all these supplies and be an elf. So many cool things to make.

enjoying yogurt, until the meltdown

Eating yogurt

I've been putting away massive quantities of yogurt these past few weeks - ever since my friend turned me on to Pavel's Russian Yogurt. If  you are wondering, this friend is in fact Russian. Apparently I was in the dark on the Russian expertise in yogurt. I've been adding some sliced kiwi, plump perfectly ripe strawberries, and fresh mouth-watering blueberries - about those berries.

Lately I've been pulling my hair out over the organic/non-organic dilemma. Does it really matter? I started to consciously eat only organic a couple weeks ago after Jeffery Smith - the leading voice in GMO - said that organic also meant no Genetic Modification. But does it...does it reeeallly? Who knows.

For a while, I was assuming that because the FDA is so corrupt, organic labels probably mean as much the "all natural" labels, which mean about as much as a label that says, "contains loads of ingredients and fanciful names."

The popular ice cream in Cambodia, haah!

  

I've been reading an important book called Seeds of Deception about the genetic modification/engineering industry. Honestly, everyone...everyone...everyone should read this or a book about this or at least watch a documentary on this topic.

GMO is the scariest thing in the world to me simply because once we allow it into our environment, we cannot take it back. It will screw up the natural checks and balances of our ecosystem  forever. I know that sounds dramatic, but call it like it is. Scientists are playing God, when they have no idea what kind of effects consuming altered genes will have. They don't know, mainly because they haven't taken the time to find out. The handfull of tests that have been done on animals have raised nothing but red flags. One test was done on humans, and even this didn't  look at the effects on the body; it studied removed human intestines - still the results showed that GMO was not safe.

One experiement on humans and somehow GMO foods made it into grocery stores. Smith says, "only one test, besides the global test that we are all a part of right now."

Big agriculture companies have prevented grassroots efforts to label the modified foods. People can't even make up their own minds.

Now it's hard to find a crop that doesn't use GMO seeds.The farmers who want to grow organic food have been contaminated with neighboring GMO seeds.

Monsanto patented terminator seeds, which die after one season. I can only speak for myself, but first, I dont want to eat a mutated plant that comes from a dead mutated seed. Second, I don't want to be dependent on a big company for my food (too late, right?). In this scenero, we all are dependent, even the farmers who were carrying the torch for the rest of us. Once a crop is harvested for the season, farmers have to buy a new shipment of seeds from Monsanto because their seeds have been genetically altered to die. Of course there are all kinds of problems we are introducing.

That's no big deal, really, because we can fix them all. Modify nature here. A little adjustment there. And here. And there. Wait, who died and said we were in charge? Was it Nietzsche? He did said God was dead? Haha, so I guess that puts us in charge. It goes back into the Transhumanism Movement that I am always hearing about -  this common strain of thinking that dismisses nature and seems to have everlasting confidence in the exploits of man. Come on though, Mr. H+. Do you really think that you can do this better than nature? Better than God? Here we go again. God is supposed to be dead, but you are here. Isn't that proof?

Until the meltdown:  Non GMO Shopping Guide