Sand Painting – Kseniya Simonova

Every week in Time magazine they include a little piece near the end where they get some celebrity’s list of things they’re in to right now.  This last week it was Sir Ian McKellen and the first item on his list was sand painting and he mentions Simonova’s name.  Until that moment I had no idea what sand painting was.  Maybe you’ve heard of it already.  Apparently, this kind of sand painting is when sand is spread on an opaque surface that is lit from underneath and the artist creates images in the sand with her fingertips.  Well, I had to satiate my curiosity and I instantly went to YouTube to see for myself.

Kseniya Simonova was 2009’s Ukraine’s Got Talent winner.  It only took one video to make me an instant fan.  I have embedded the video that I first saw.  Apparently, it depicts life during the Great Patriotic War of the USSR against the Third Reich during World War II.  I think there was a lot of cultural significance that was lost on me in the depiction, but I was incredibly moved nonetheless.  It had the audience of Ukraine’s Got Talent in tears.  I highly recommend this.  Beautiful.

I also discovered that this kind of sand painting has been around for years and Simonova is certainly not the first to turn heads with this medium.  Another artist whose work appears on YouTube is Ferenc Cako.  Check it out.

Review of Where The Wild Things Are

I blogged a little while back about how much I was looking forward to this movie.  Well, I finally saw it and was very pleased with it.  I think that the film version of Where The Wild Things Are is the best possible movie that could have been created from the book.  That being said, you have to remember that the book had only 48 pages and somewhere around 330 words.  A feature-length film adaptation is bound to have an effect on the essence of a book that takes less than 5 minutes to read.

The thing about such a short book is that it leaves a lot of room for each individual to imagine and elaborate on the story.  The film is Spike Jonze’s imagination and elaboration of the book and, as such, it will not match up with everyone else’s imaginations.

As it turns out, my siblings, with whom I shared the experience of reading the book as a child, were hoping for a much happier product than Jonze provided.  I agree that it wasn’t an overly happy film and it focused a lot on negative emotions.  But I think that is part of what made the movie so impressive to me.  It shined a light on what I see as the simple and limited worldview of a child – not every child, but many children – of a striving for pleasure and avoidance of punishment.  Max’s interactions with each character in his imaginary world symbolized his interactions with himself or someone else in the real world.  It was not always a pleasant result for the viewer, but for me it was often poignant and meaningful.  And for me that’s where the power of the film was.

Another important result I perceived of the room for elaboration within the book is that I enjoyed the book, the movie and the trailer for the movie more or less equally.  Each was different in important ways and provided different, yet similar, ways of understanding the story.  The book is endearing in its simplicity and nostalgic of childhood, the film is symbolic and meaningful, and the trailer provides an image of a real world in which Max and the monsters exist without interpreting the story for me, all while The Arcade Fire’s song, “Wake Up” inspires me and enlivens my imagination.

Ultimately, I don’t blame anyone who read the book as a child for disliking the movie.  It should be unsurprising that not everyone would envision the story of Where of the Wild Things Are in the same way as Spike Jonze.  But as I said, I think it was the best kind of movie that could have been made from the book while still being, unavoidably, different from the book.

My New Obsession

Some of you might know this about me: I love trivia and I love memorizing things.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Ken Jennings, but I certainly enjoy the feeling of just knowing things.  When I was about eleven years old and had dreams of becoming a world famous chemist I came across the periodic table of the elements in my parents set of encyclopedia that I just happened to be browsing through and I thought to myself, “How great would it be if I could memorize all these elements?”  So by age twelve I could name all the elements by symbol.  And speaking of trivia, the only magazine that I’ve ever read every article, cover to cover, is Mental Floss, a magazine of pure trivia.  It’s such a fascinating publication.  I would recommend it to everyone.

Now that you know this about me, I’m ready for you to know what I’m obsessed with these days: Sporcle.com.  I think I might have mentioned it briefly earlier in my blog.  But if you haven’t heard of this website please go ahead and check it out.  It’s a website full of little quizzes.  Everything from naming all the presidents of the US to naming VH1’s top 100 songs of the 90s.  Even if you’re not a trivia buff and even if you don’t fancy yourself very good at remembering things it’s a great pastime and a great way to hone your geography or history skills and so much more.  Maren and I will often do quizzes together.  We compete on some and cooperate on others.  Since I’ve started my Sporcle habit I can now name all the US states and their capitals, I can name all the countries of the world (with a blank map in front of me) and all the flags of Europe.

So go check it out.  In addition to the ones I’ve already linked to above here are some quizzes that you might enjoy:

Car Logos. 90s Video Games. Guess The Language.   The “A” Game. Time’s Top 100 Novels.

My Honeymoon

This post is also long overdue, but couldn’t be done until I had written something about my wedding day.  I’ll keep it fairly simple, though.

The night of the wedding we spent at a friend’s vacation property in Coronado.  Very nice place and location.  The next day we left for Las Vegas, where we would spend the next 5 days.

The rundown of our week in Vegas is this:

We stayed at a Marriott Resort about 15 minutes away from the Strip.  We slept in a lot and hung out at the pool a lot.  It was pretty hot while we were there.  In the evenings we would go to the strip and explore the hotels and different attractions.  It was my first time being to Vegas so I thought it was pretty cool.

After "O" in the gift shop.

We saw the Bellagio fountain show about 10 times, we watched the Treasure Island show (which sucked), we explored the Wynn (the highest rated hotel in Vegas), we went up the Stratosphere and I rode the rides (it was pretty sweet!), Maren wasn’t really into the rides.

My favorite attraction that we saw was the Cirque du Soleil’s show “O”.  I’ve wanted to see Cirque du Soleil since I was a kid.  It didn’t disappoint.  I loved it.  We also saw Penn & Teller, which was pretty funny.

We ate a lot.  We found some trashy buffets, we found a brazilean bbq place, we found a Cafe Rio (Maren’s favorite) and lots of other food.  It was great!

Then it was time to go.  On our way of Vegas we found an outlet mall to do some shopping at and then we said goodbye to Nevada and hello to our new married life together.  It’s been a month and a half and we’re still going strong!  Woohoo!

My Big Day

This post is long overdue.  Even when I’m posting regularly to my blog I tend to forget to post things about major life events.  To be fair, this isn’t as much a “follow-along-with-my-life” kind of blog as it is a “Peter’s random thoughts” blog.  But as I was saying, I said I would post about my engagement but never really did.  And now it’s been a month since my wedding and I’m finally getting my act together and telling you all about it.  Better late than never, right?

I’ll start at the week before the wedding.  Anyone who’s planned a wedding can probably empathize when I say that things got a little hectic the week before the wedding.  A week before the wedding the first out-of-towners showed up – Randal and Theresa Miller!  I hadn’t seen them in a while so I wanted to hang out with them as much as possible, which, of course, made the wedding preparations slightly more hectic because I had to schedule them around hang out time.  I should add that Maren was very supportive of my desire to hang out with my far-from-home Canadian friends while they were in town.

Speaking of how supportive Maren was, she was an angel through all of the preparations.  Not to mention her siblings (thanks, guys!).  I tried to make myself useful when it came to wedding prep, but more often than not Maren had taken care of things or was taking care of things.  I feel like I put in a fair effort, but the credit definitely goes to Maren and her siblings.

The Monday before the wedding Maren and I had planned to go take some pictures at the temple in our wedding getup in order to save time and stress on the wedding weekend.  Since we had our reception before the ceremony, this meant that the day of the ceremony would actually be the third time I saw Maren in her wedding dress (good thing I’m not superstitious!).

Moving on.  While Randal and Theresa were in town, my good friend Dan came down from Orange County to hang as well.  Thursday and Friday was when everyone else started arriving from out of town: My mom and sisters, my Aunt Mary, Makea Lowry, Andrew and Paige Irwin, Scott Leishman and others.  I have to say that having my family and some of my best friends in town for my wedding was one of the best presents I could have hoped for.  For most of them it was a significant financial sacrifice to make the trip from Canada or elsewhere and I’m so glad they came!

The other details of the week before the wedding escape me now, but it was a busy week.

Friday was the day of the reception and the day before the wedding ceremony.  What a day!  Again I don’t remember a lot of the details of the day.  I do know that I was lucky enough to get to chill with Makea for a good part of the day before the reception.  And then it was time for the reception!

It was so much fun!  We had a live oldies band playing swing music while the guests arrived and the receiving line was going on.  I had a bag of cream puffs with me in the receiving line to tide me over until I got to eat something real.  So many people came!  Mostly people that Maren knew.  Everyone said how beautiful Maren looked (cause she really did look amazing!) and a couple of people told me that I looked good, too.  We had to cut the receiving line short to get on with the program.

There was a special musical number and dance by Maren’s siblings, there were toasts by the moms, and I gave a pretty excellent toast to my bride.  Then we cut the cake and started the dance.  Lots of people danced, which made it so much more fun.  At one point during the dance, in honor of the day when we “fell for each other” (a halloween dance), I donned my halloween rockstar costume and made an appearance on the dance floor.  People laughed.  It was fun.

Since we weren’t married yet, we were in no hurry to get anywhere after the reception.  We stayed till the very end, after which Maren stayed with her Mom and siblings, while I went back to the Bird’s house (where I was staying at the time) with all my groomspeople.  We stayed up late hot tubbing and talking.  It was great.

And then it was the big day!  I was so excited.  I was gonna get married!  I was gonna look great, Maren was gonna look great, we were going to the temple, I was stoked!  Without getting into detail I just want to say how special it was to get married in the temple.  It’s such a special place and it made the whole experience that much better for me.  I was bursting with happiness the whole time.  Lots of smiling going on, for sure.

After the ceremony there were a few more pictures to be taken and then we went off to the luncheon part of the day.  We held a ring ceremony for my family who wasn’t able to attend the temple ceremony.  I thought it was very nice.  And lunch was very nice, too.  Ruth was giving everyone massages.  I got a lot of positive feedback from my friends about that.

Then the luncheon was over and Maren and I had nothing else to do but get changed and start the honeymoon!  Stay tuned…

Obama Won The Nobel Peace Prize?

I was shocked to learn yesterday that President Barack Obama was the 2009 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.  I wasn’t shocked in a bad way, more like shocked in a “huh? really?” kind of way.  I’m not entirely convinced that Obama deserved the award.  And it appears that many agree with me, the President included.  And it was comforting to see the humility with which Obama spoke of his surprise at receiving the award.

While I don’t think Obama’s actions have yet warranted this kind of recognition, I do believe that his actions may yet earn him this prematurely awarded distinction.  Obama is a good person who is doing good things.  So instead of debating Obama’s worthiness of such an award, I think we should focus on the implications of this particular award at this particular moment in history.

I think Americans are somewhat isolationist, ideologically at least.  What I mean is that I think many Americans feel that most interaction with the rest of the world is a bit of nuisance and we only do it because we have to (except for tourism and whatever trade alliances are necessary to provide us with our favorite cars and video games).  That kind of attitude in today’s global community is not only unrealistic but negligent.  The fates of Americans are tied to the fates of so many other people around the world, whether we admit it to ourselves or not.

So many leaders are focused on keeping America “American” and a “Global Superpower” when what America and the rest of the world really needs is a leader that will give due attention to making a country as powerful and influential as the United States a true partner in the global undertaking for a more harmonious future.  And I think the world sees Obama as that leader.  And I think that is the take-home message of Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Sure, Obama doesn’t measure up to past Nobel Laureates.  Sure, he’s struggling to find success even among Americans.  But the kind of person and leader he is has convinced many influential people (the Nobel Committee, at the very least) that he is the kind of leader that the rest of the world needs America to have.

So, congratulations President Obama.  Let’s hope you earn it.

As a side note, after Obama said his two bits on the news, I thought it was interesting how the different news networks chose to spend their time.  MSNBC continued to talk about how surprising Obama’s win was and trying to figure out how everyone else was going to react to it and FOX and CNN both immediately went to a high speed chase in Texas (which they covered live for over an hour).  Make of that what you will.  The high speed chase was more interesting, though (for a few minutes, at least).

If I Were Homeless…

…I would live in Southern California!

But before I continue, let’s get serious for a second.  Homelessness is a serious issue.  And I just want to emphasize that most homelessness is not a result of people being lazy and/or foolish.  I volunteered at a homeless shelter in Pasadena when I was on my mission and they educated all their volunteers that most homelessness is a direct result of mental illness, addiction or a combination of both.  Homeless people are ill.  Or in today’s economy, they could just be tragic victims of circumstance.  I only bring this up to help ensure that we’re not judging the homeless unfairly.

But back to the lighter side and my point – if you’ve got to be homeless, pick a good climate.  Maren and I just moved to Pacific Beach, a little beach community in San Diego, and PB has quite a contingent of the homeless puttering around town.  And as I look at these guys (and girls) with their ultra-tanned bodies, sun-bleached hair and a minimum of personal belongings I think to myself, relatively speaking, these guys have it pretty good.  It’s sunny most of the time, it rarely rains, they have an ocean to bathe in (although it seems to me that they probably never bathe), and the lowest temperature they ever have to deal with is 50 degrees F on a winter night.

It blows my mind that homeless people in Canada survive the winters there.  They have to keep track of more personal belongings because they need as much warm clothing and bedding as they can get.  They sleep on heat vents, in shelters when they can, or they just get themselves arrested for the duration of the holiday season.  It’s insane.

But as I said before, since most homelessness is a result of mental illness and addiction, homeless people don’t leave where they’re at.  They need to stay close to their supply of whatever drug is their vice or they just don’t know how to take care of themselves properly.

All I’m saying is that if I, personally, were homeless in Edmonton and things weren’t looking to change soon I would probably make my way straight down to southern California.

I’m Back!

So I’m actually really busy studying for the GRE right now.  I take it next weekend.  This is my second time taking it, hoping to get a more competitive result.  And then I’ll also be taking the GRE Subject Test in Psychology.  So, lots of studying for me in the next few months.

But super quick, I GOT MARRIED!  And it was awesome!  I might tell you about it when I have more time.  We honeymooned in Las Vegas and that was awesome, too!  We’ve been married for three weeks now and it’s great.  Our place in Pacific Beach is rad!  It’s a mile from the beach and we’re apartment managers so we live for free!  All very cool things.

Now I need to return to studying.  But rest assured, I will return to blogdom once more.  I really have been missing the world of blogging a little lately, but there have been much more important and enjoyable things to do.  Soon, readers of mine, very soon…

Recap Time!!

So tonight I attended a portion of my fiancee’s first bridal shower, in which I participated in some games.  One of said games involved Maren and I answering questions about the other.  The organizer of this event and the games, Tasha Cureton, bless her heart, loves my blog and used its content as the basis for several questions that Maren had to answer.  As flattered as I was that she did such a thing, I was equally ashamed that I haven’t contributed anything to my blog in over a month.  So here I sit, sleepless at 3:30am, writing about my blogging woes.  

There were several things that I had meant to add to the blog a while ago, but did not get around to doing so.  I will include them here in abbreviated form in order to expedite my blogging recovery.

First, I had meant to include a synopsis of my trip to Florida to visit my dad.  It included: 

• Some good visiting with my dad.
• A trip to Daytona Beach
• A visit to the Kennedy Space Center (which was awesome!)
• Some movies
• Various beach and other Florida activities

 

 

Second, and easily the most important thing to happen to me in the last couple of months, I got engaged to my girlfriend, now fiancee, Maren Romney on June 15th, 2009.  This event has its own blog post elsewhere, notquitecanadian.blogspot.com, and I encourage you to visit that website for the story if you haven’t already heard it.  It’s pretty awesome.  The abbreviated version is as follows:

• Maren suspected for weeks
• I planned trip to Disneyland
• I had to disguise ring box in my pocket with my camera
• Popped the question in front of the castle
• Got pictures of the whole thing
• Got Disneyland pins to commemorate the occasion
• Best day ever!

The weeks following the above-mentioned event have quickly become a time vacuum and I find myself very short on time for activities such as blogging.  But I’m so excited about getting married that I don’t even care!  Plans are coming along great and I’m engaged to the best girl in the world!  Life is good.

I love writing, and blogging has been the best outlet for me over the last year and a bit, but don’t be surprised if I don’t blog again for another month or so.  There’s still much to be done in preparation for the wedding and I gladly yield to those demands for now.  Be patient, faithful reader.  You are not forgotten. ;)

Happy Canada Day!

I just wanted to say to everyone who reads my blog, Happy Canada Day!  I’ve been in the States for a while and in general I’m trying not to be too much of an over-bearing Canadian-in-America but today is the one day of the year when I feel justified being completely and unabashedly Canadian and bragging about it.

I think Canada is great!  And I’m glad to be Canadian!

And I am a huge fan of my friend Randal’s annual Canada Day Quiz.  You should definitely check it out.  And because I want to be like Randal but I’m not as smart or creative as him, I was just going to give you all a link to a Canadian quiz on Sporcle.com (if you haven’t already heard of sporcle, that’s another thing you really need to check out) but upon searching for the quiz today I could not find it anymore.  Sad.  It’s the thought that counts, right?

Psych!  I found the link I wanted to give you.  http://www.sporcle.com/games/famouscanadians.php

Let me know how you do!

Happy Canada Day!