VampireS Sumo

If you’ve ever visited YouTube you already know how easy they′ve made it to view videos online. No more waiting for movies to download. No server crashes or time spent counting the seconds until it actually loads.

Yes, they′ve made it easy for anyone to upload their visions and ideas to the web. In fact, they have an entire section devoted to “how to” do something.

Recently, I uploaded my first video to YouTube. It’s titled “Piano Lessons: December Twilight.”

And with this video (hopefully) I show you how to create a piano improvisation in the Key of A Major using an ostinato pattern in the left hand while your right improvises melody.

I used something called a point and shoot camcorder by Pure Digital. And for $89 from Target, I have to say that it’s quite something!

I positioned the little camcorder in one of my lamps (believe it or not) and sat down and recorded my first video piano lesson.

The great thing about YouTube is that viewers can tell you what they think. If they like it they can rate it using a star system and/or leave comments -both good and bad.

The other great thing about watching videos on YouTube is that you can watch them over and over again. This is especially helpful for learning something. You can pause and even skip ahead to wherever you want.

The maximum file size allowed on YouTube is 100 MB and this gives you at least 10 minutes of video time.

Anyway, I hope you check out youtube.com/watch?v=qE0IxCIDϖw” target=”_blank my piano lessons video on YouTube and tell me what you think.

Edward Weiss is a pianist/composer and webmaster of Quiescence Music’s quiescencemusic.com/piano_lessons.html online piano lessons. He has been helping students learn how to play piano in the New Age style for over 14 years and works with students in private, in groups, and now over the internet. Visit quiescencemusic.com/piano_lessons.html www.quiescencemusic.com/piano_lessons.html now and get a FREE piano lesson!

Human Religion indeed Ha Ha Ha; Religion is a real Human Problem, from the VooDoo witch doctors in Haiti, to the African religions, which say if a woman does not have five living kids that the gods are saying she is unworthy when the mortality rate is 5:1 meaning she has to have 25 kids for five to survive? Then it becomes the Worlds Problem to feed them? And then the notion that the only way to get rid of AIDS is to have sex with a virgin, so they run around looking for 4 year olds who are still virgins.

But all the World Religions although many are somewhat better, are not much really. Religion is something that the first world no longer needs, as civilizations of human kind have out paced the usefulness of these make believe stories. I predict 30 years until the end of religion, if religion does not destroy them selves thru in-fighting.

Personally religon does not affect me, and provides some sound and fury to participate in for merely opinion sake? Exciting the brains chemicals arguing over irrelevance in the life experience. But from outside the religious cave flickerings, it is obvious that religion is one of the major problems keeping humans from a one-world common cause to unite the species in celebrating what it is to be alive as humans in this excellent gift of life. So why kill each other? Seems rather ridiculous.

Religious Wars and Culture Clashes go on to this day, but again, if one group tries to kill another then the revenge, fear and fight and flight kicks in and thus reciprocal responses until the fictitious hell freezes over? Well, isn’t that just a wonderful life’s mission indeed? Do we really need religion at all? Consider this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” - Online WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/ Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance in the Online Think Tank and solve the problems of the World; WorldThinkTank.net www.WorldThinkTank.net/

Li Songsong was born on 1973 in Beijing, China. He lives and works in Beijing, China. His painting was the kind of iron candy boxes he played with when he was small. Its title was “Beijing Candy.” There was another one called “Digging,” which depicted some soldiers digging trenches. He painted above two paintings between 1997 and 1999. At that time, he just graduated from college and had not much to do at home so he painted those. This way of thinking was not especially active back then.

He made “Horse″ in June 2001. He started to paint these paintings during that summer when he found some old photographs. Originally he wanted to paint something that had a certain distance from reality. He thought to construct a scene in painting, representing things or a certain sentiment from our real life, was not so interesting.

The painting of the soldiers digging the trench, for example, was a picture he saw by chance. He felt attracted to the process of looking at photographs. When he looks at pictures in a book, he usually turns them over when we understand the meaning in them. He painted this picture probably because He looked at it so closely. It was a very plain photograph: some people in uniform were digging into the earth on a wasteland. After he read the explanation, he realized that the people were voluntary soldiers digging a trench during the Korean War. If you look at an image long enough, you will discover other meanings in it. He had also painted images from TV, the portrait of the late Deng XiaoPing for example. At the time when he passed his portrait was on TV every day. I took a picture of his portrait and painted it. But he didn’t continue with this kind of topics, including the one of the candy box. Perhaps he wanted to paint some existing and ready-made things at that time. But he didn’t want to sketch a person in a conventional type of space. He wanted the original image to be something one dimensional.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS-

2006
• CHINA NOW - Faszination einer Weltveränderung, Sammlung Essl, Klosterneuburg / Vienna, Austria
• Mahjong - Chinesische Gegenwartskunst aus der Sammlung Sigg, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany

2005

• PICTORIAL DNA made in China, Galerie Urs Meile, Lucerne, Switzerland
• Mahjong - Chinesische Gegenwartskunst aus der Sammlung Sigg, Kunstmuseum Bern Switzerland
• CHINA: as seen BY CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ARTISTS, Spazio Oberdan, Milano, Italy

2004
• China’s Photographic Painting, China Art Season Gallery, Beijing
• China und was mich sonst bewegt, Galerie 99 , Aschaffenburg
• Solo exhibition Belgische Botschaft Beijing

2003
• Left Hand,Right Hand, Deutsch-Chinesische Gemeinschaftsausstellung zeitgenössischer Kunst, 798 Space, Beijing
• Nationale Kunstausstellung der Ölmalerei, Chinesisches Nationalmuseum in Beijing fade in, Fotografie Ausstellung, 798 Art Space , Beijing

2002
• China Contempo, Art Seasons Gallery, Singapore

• Face to Face, Chinese and Indian Contemporary Art, Shen Gallery, Singapore

2001
• Video Work, “Serendipitous Encounter”, 1. Unabhängiges chinesisches Filmfestival, Beijing
• Public Action Work Horse, Campus des Fine Arts Institut an der Qinghua Universität, Beijing

2000
• Beijing Invitational Oil painting Exhibition, Dong Huan Art Center, Beijing

Conclusions:
Li Songsong had already established his own style and the impact of the work had won him a strong reputation in Chinese art circles.

What to Do Next…
If you want any information about Li Songsong or looking for his paintings please visit us on saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/li_songsong.htm

View Li Songsong paintings, biography, solo exhibitions, group exhibitions and resource of Li Songsong. View art online at The Saatchi Gallery - London contemporary art gallery.
saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/li_songsong.htm Li Songsong

I use to have a Lucky Charm. It was a toe ring. I wore it on my baby toe. An old boyfriend of mine had given it to me. It was a cheap little thing. I don’t know why I even wore it. Call me sentimental.

The first night I wore it to a casino I won at the roulette table. I was betting straight-up on 33. It hit 3 times out of the 10 times I played. I walked away after the third hit.

The next night I wore the toe ring to the casino I decided to play the slots. I’m not much for playing the slots. Too much exercise and not enough pay out. But for some reason I decided to play. An hour into playing I was a hundred dollars down. But then I hit the 3 cherries. And it was a Progressive Jackpot machine I was playing. I walked out of the casino after hitting that jackpot.

The third time I wore the toe ring was to a Poker Party my good friend Rachel was hosting. Just 5 girls getting together for a few drinks, a little gossip and a night of Texan Holdem. All of us were serious gamblers. By serious I mean – we played to win. And we were very competitive with each other. All 5 of us were very good players and when we did get together to play poker very rarely did anyone come away a big winner.

That night I couldn’t do any wrong. The cards came my way and when they didn’t my bluffing was impeccable. That evening I walked away with over 5 thousand dollars.

A short time after that my lucky charm broke. Like I said, it was a cheap little thing. I’m not sure why I think of it as a lucky charm. I had won at gambling many times before the charm and many times since. I guess I am like most gamblers – superstitious.

But the best lucky charm I have ever had has been my gambling systems and my brain. I would never give those up for a toe ring or a rabbit’s foot or any other superstitious charm.

Copyright 2006 Pamela Pompeii. All rights reserved.

Pamela Pompeii is a new breed of stylistic journalist and the resident article writer for gambleonthis.com gambleonthis.com. She also has the ability, as she points out, to tell a tall tale once in awhile.

I cannot bear to think
of when you will be gone.

I do not understand
how I will get along.

Your love has been my resting place,
the place that I would go,
no matter what,
no matter where
your love would always flow.

A simple call
a quick hello,
Where have you been?

What do you know?

Just to touch base
and share a laugh
a smile or two,
a joke or gaffe.

What will I do when you are gone?

Who will I call?

There is no other quite like you
no other love that’s half as true.

no one could do the things you’ve done,
no other one could be my sun,
shining brightly as I get your call,
“I’m home now dear,
what’s going on?”

Copyright August 2003
Fran Watson

For more poetry and stories you can go to Fran’s webpage franwatson.ca franwatson.ca

It’s now the year 2007. It seems that it’s all about popularity and trends in this generation, as far as anyone can tell. Be it YouTube, MySpace, car surfing, hip-hop, or whatever is the “trend”. But something new is arising from the teens of this generation. . .from the teens and juveniles.

I am talking, now, about the “Willie, Gilbert and A.J. Show”. A strange entertainment series of films that seems to keep on going.

This “Willy, Gilbert & AJ Show”, is not only that, but also appears to be a musical group, and many more things. But the main focus of this “Willy, Gilbert & AJ Show” is three juvenile males:

WILLY MORANO:
After much investigating, I see that “Willy Morano” is a typical Hispanic rolly-polly, stocky boy. And a little round, I might say, but that’s fine. He is displayed as somewhat disturbed in the “show”.

GILBERT .S:
Another rather round teen Latino, who portrays a bad-to-the-bone, ready-to-kill-style detective.

A.J. DALTON:
An over-the-top-frank-and somewhat modest teen, he portrays also the juvenile detective, all about investigating a strange case when he’s provided one.

The main focus is that they are all “juvenile detectives”, and in the beginning, catch fans’ attentions with a strange soap-opera-who’s-the-father-cliche’ outline, but instead, it’s altered. A dog is pregnant, and so is a boy. And who’s the father?

I, for one, found it laugh-out-loud-funny, as well as their “Kamikazee Potty-Training-Elmo-Doll” plot.

After researching this for this very article, I couldn’t resist. I had to track down these main three “juvenile detectives” of the show, and interview about this, however I could.

After a few weeks of pulling strings, I met the stars themselves: AJ Dalton, Gilbert .S., Willy Morano, and Diego Castro.

I asked what was up about a lot of things, including the basic “juvenile detective” fiasco, and AJ said,
“It’s nothing personal, really, it’s a subliminal comment on how today’s police force will give anyone a badge, or anyone a gun.”

During the interview, which I simply took notes of, I asked where the inspiration for a “Kamikazee Elmo Dolls” came from, and why “Kamikaze” was ALWAYS spelt wrong.

That’s when “Gilbert” told me the unusual true story, that was secluded of a unnamed child’s doll, besides Elmo, that was supposed to potty-train children, and it said, “who wants to die?”, and supposedly caught on fire.

Whatever brand toy it was, it was assumed to be a sick joke by whoever manufactured that doll, and was an isolated incident.

Additionally, it was only spelled wrong as a joke, because they weren’t trying to offend actual relatives of people in World War II who had been killed by Kamikazes.

Even after a solid three-hour interview with the “Willy, Gilbert & AJ Show”, I still may think of this entertainment group. So. . .what, per se, is this satirical trend?

There is so much in nature to interest a child, making a garden the ideal place for photographs. It is a place where children may stay still for an inordinate length of time to explore everything in detail. This gives you more time to plan your photographs. But, once you have a beautiful backdrop and willing subject, how can you best use the opportunity capture that precious moment in pictures? Setting up your photograph is more than waiting for a smile and then snapping away. In an article I wrote earlier this year, I discussed locations for photographing, appropriate dress, and how to make kids smile. This article focuses on the proper use of light, composition, and point of view.

Light is one of the most important elements in photography and it is the one most often ignored. Professional portrait photographers seek even or directional lighting that softens harsh shadows. Preferring to photograph in the early morning or around dusk when the light is soft and flattering, photographers will use a flash or directional lighting when it is necessary to take photos in the middle of the day. Once you find a location that interests your child or have handed your little one a flower to examine, take a look at the way the light falls on her face. If there are lots of harsh shadows, use a flash to fill them. Or, as a natural light photographer prefers, direct the light so that it is not shining from many directions. Simply put, if possible, move your child under a tree or overhang so the light is shining from the left or right side. Light from behind will make your subject backlit (like a silhouette), light behind you will make your subject squint. Much has been written about light in photography because there are many factors that can “trick” your camera into creating something you did not see.

Another important element to consider when taking a great photograph is composition. These rules apply for any subject, whether you are photographing a person, flower, or landscape. Try not to center your subject and follow the rules of thirds, which states that placing your subject one third of the way into your composition is most pleasing. Also consider the framing of your subject. Look for appealing arcs or elements that draw your eye to the subject. With your composition, consider the background of your picture. Is your background too busy, drawing attention away from the figure or do you have a pleasing background that makes your subject stand out. If you have a fancy enough camera, you may be able to blur your background by controlling your depth of field.

Your point of view can make the most of a particular scene. Do not just stand and snap. While looking through your viewfinder, squat, get on your belly, move a little to the right and then the left to find the best angle at which to take a picture. Should you capture your subject’s image from the side or head on? Consider what an overhead shot may provide to make your subject more interesting and go get a chair if you need one.

Plants and kids offer endless opportunities for great summer photos. Kids examine everything around them with curious expressions and lively gestures. Make sure you are prepared to catch the right light from the right angle to preserve a precious summer time smile.

Award winning photographer Melissa Mannon specializes in garden and nature photography. Melissa’s photographs show a special sensitivity for her subjects. She aims to portray the beauty, innocence, and power of nature standing alone or with human interaction. The strong bond between humans and the environment is the focus of her portrait work. Her childhood portraits capture the playfulness, innocence, and thoughtfulness of children interacting with their surroundings with a gentle and humorous style. melissamannonphotography.com melissamannonphotography.com

Is it possible to consciously choose to create a more satisfying life experience?

This seems like an innocent enough question that can be answered in the affirmative.
But it is actually a trick question. The reason why most people have only a few satisfying life experiences is because they are almost completely unconscious. They are operating on automatic, on subconscious programs that run quietly in the background, dictating their every move, pulling on their emotional strings, selecting their perceptions, and organizing their experiences around past hurts, fears, and insecurities.

Ironically, they think that they are conscious. Acting out in a crazy, self- and other-destructive way is not conscious. And it is only because of acting out on our drives that we are unconscious. Someone who is conscious does not let their drives dictate their thoughts, feelings, and actions. Instead, they choose the best possible options available to them based on what they currently know. A casual survey of people around you will quickly reveal that impulsive actions are the norm. Rationality takes a back seat to innate tendencies and urges.

The way to become conscious is to become aware.

Awareness is stepping back and looking at everything for the first time. It is pulling the subjective ego state out of the equation and making an attempt to see what is the way that it is.

Awareness is not simple. It is not something that you naturally snap into. And this is why spiritual disciplines like yoga, focusing on your breath, meditation, mindfulness, and so on exist and have the power to change your life for the better. The natural state for human beings is to be hypnotized by the onslaught of conditioning that began since birth.

Thus, the natural state for human beings is to be unnatural. It is to perceive through the lens of bias. It is to hear selectively. It is to act impulsively, regardless of consequences. It is to defend the ego from all possible threats while at the same time pretending to make a show of being open-minded, rational, and even objective.

Another way of describing this phenomenon is to say that the neocortex is used much less often than the mammalian or reptilian portions of the human brain. Yet it is only the highly-developed and functional neocortex which will inform our actions to choose the best possible experiences. The emotional brain and the instinctive brain take over the show.

Thus, if we desire to have more satisfying life experiences, we have to be present to the moment. This means that we have to be aware. We have to be cognizant of the environment. And we have to recognize our own subconscious programs trying to bubble up to the surface to take over our experience.

If you are aware enough, the past does not have to equal the future. You can, in fact, choose your ideal future and find ways to reach it. However, because most people are
not aware enough that the future happens to be a constant repetition of past patterns.
The weight of past experiences, because it is unexamined and therefore unconscious, has a stronger pull on them.

The way to create awareness is to take on the practice of some psychological or spiritual discipline which will train you to think in an original and creative way. Those who choose not to examine the past are condemned to repeat it.

Cultivating awareness is not easy, but there is nothing more worthwhile. The culmination of supreme awareness is enlightenment, the uncanny ability to be in a stream of constantly unfolding satisfying experiences.

Ultimately, it is a spiritual experience to be in charge of your own mind and direct it away from unconscious acting out to conscious deliberation. The culmination of this discipline is awareness. And the gift of awareness is connection with your own divine nature.

Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas with you. Hunting everywhere for a life worth living? Discover the life of your dreams. His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. theempoweredsoul.com/enter.html theempoweredsoul.com/enter.html

Copyright 2004 Saleem Rana. Please feel free to pass this
article on to your friends, or use it in your ezine or
newsletter. It’s a shareware article.

“Withering Heights” by Emily Bronte was deemed as a disturbing story of sinful and evil content many people would say it’s guilty as opposed to innocent. This expression came to use after the publication of “Literature and Evil” by Georges Bataille.

When we think of the word innocent, the word good also comes to mind. Innocence is the state of having done nothing wrong, and so something that commits no wrongs must then be good, and therefore free from guilt. Bataille gives this utilitarian based view of Good it is “based on a common interest which entails consideration of the future” . So something that is not based on a common interest, and does not consider the future and consequences of itself cannot be classed as Good, or innocent, and so must be ‘bad’, and therefore can be said to be Evil.

So it must follow that Evil, in opposition to Good, lacks these restraints, and does not consider the future – it merely exists in the moment it presents. This is why it is so relevant to literature – when we read literature we are just existing in the moment of the novel – it takes no consideration of anything but that moment that it presents. It allows us to explore this world, with no consequences. We are able to suspend our disbelief, and enter the “mystical state” of the novel that we can experience in this solitude. Also, if the content reveals a narrative where there are also no restraints, then this state is intensified.

As we know, the love of Catherine and Heathcliff is the focus of Wuthering Heights, so there is much to be explored here – the issue of the love presented in the novel, the status of the characters involved, and how this all relates to Bataille’s opinion on the guilt of literature in general.

So in the eyes of the world, Heathcliff represents Evil, and all it stands for. But, as Bataille himself says, Heathcliff believes he “represents Good and reason” . Heathcliff is questioning society and its limits, and this is where the theme of transgression becomes important. Heathcliff is trying to transgress through society and its laws, and so he represents opposition to social restrictions. Bataille describes this transgression as a tragic violation of the law, which leads the novel to have a certain affinity with Greek tragedy – atonement is connected with transgression.

Bataille believes that, in writing Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte had “fathomed the very depths of Evil” . From his study, it seems that perhaps you have to be Evil yourself to write literature at all, because you have to be unlimited – free of restraints – and as we know, to lack these constraints is seen as Evil. Jacques Blondel believes Bronte emancipated herself from all prejudice of an ethical or social order, and he believes this liberation is necessary to every artist. He also says this can be felt most intensely by those “in whom ethical values are most deeply rooted” , as they have a thorough knowledge of Good, so can easily present the opposite. Due to these values, Bronte is able to resolve the problems in her novel – this manly being the purity of love being regained in its intimate truth, which as Bataille said, is that of death. It seems true to say that only by knowing Good can you know Evil – to know the opposite of something is essential in defining it, for example, the states of hot and cold.

So, as Bataille says “Evil is always the object of an ambiguous condemnation” . It is bad to have no concern for the future or rationality, so when literature causes this in us, then it must be found guilty. So it seems Bataille is justified in pointing to the guilt of literature, as it culpable of the charges he brings to it, but the important question is whether or not this causes literature itself to be Evil? I do not think it can, because as we have seen, it may do more good than harm to society, because we can learn from it the consequences of refraining from following rationality and order in life. Bataille is, then, justified in saying literature is guilty, because he proves his case, but it cannot be said that it is guilty of anything bad, so the conclusion we must draw here seems to be that literature is guilty of something – but something other than being evil.

The article was produced by essaycapital.com/research_papers.php Research Papers expert writer. Mar Anne Winslow has a vast experience in ma-dissertations.com/ Dissertation writing counselling and essaycapital.com/term_papers.php term paper writing services for several years.

Don’t roll up your eyes and groan at the mere mention of “class”. Not all classes are as bad as those in your school and college were. In fact, a digital photography class promises bounties of fun and it is guaranteed that it will be one class of your lifetime, which you would not want to skip at any cost.

The soaring popularity of digital photography has seen digital photography schools springing up in almost every nook and cranny of your locality. So, which one to enroll to ensure your money’s worth?

Any good digital photography school worth it’s salt will offer intensive training and impart comprehensive knowledge in almost all the aspects of digital photography. And this also includes enlightening you on the internal mechanism of a digital camera. You can expect there will be no shortcuts either.

Your digital photography class will start out with an introductory session that will give you an overview of the camera setup and what digital photography is all about. You will be trained on the functions and settings of your camera so that after the completion of the course you will know your camera like the palm of your hand and will be better able to appreciate the scope of digital photography.

Being well versed in the parts and workings of a digital camera ensures that when you go to buy one for yourself, you can make the right choice.

Digital photography classes, as a principle, concentrate on teaching you the manual mode of photography. This is because the hallmark of a great photographer is definitely his skills in wielding control over how his photographs turn out. And wielding control entails that you do not let the camera decide when the flash should be used or being spot on with the focus and exposure settings without the intervention of the camera’s in-built scene modes.

There are many digital photography classes that arrange field trips for its students. And you will surely agree that a hands-on experience in outdoor shooting is actually far more beneficial than a theory class. Besides, a few bouts of outdoor filming will also ensure that your lighting issues are sorted out. Thus, the nitty-gritty of lighting like using filters to tone down the tints of a photo taken in the harsh midday sun or the details of night photography are best appreciated when tried first hand.

A stint at a digital photography class will hone your photographic skills manifold times with in-depth training in composition and blending the rules of traditional photography with the digital photography mode. The fine points of filming in different settings and churning out optimum results should also be a part of the curriculum.

Digital photography classes are particular about details. Therefore, you will not be stopping at filming lessons only. You will be taken through the editing and processing of digital photographs too. You will be taught the ways and means of accessing the images stored in the camera’s memory cards and the PC editing tweaks that will transform even the drabbest image into an enchanting piece of art. Besides, you will also be educated on how to compress the digital image files and have them uploaded on the Net.

There are hundred and one things that you can do with your digital images. Printing is definitely one of them. And you can be sure that your digital photography class instructor will teach you the fundamentals of getting digital prints.

A digital photography class is an excellent way of acquainting yourself with the ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ of digital photography. Attend one and flaunt your skills with the lens and the shutter.

Summary of Author: Connie Fillmore is a successful writer and publisher of photography related issues, for more informative articles go to digitalphotographyguy.com digitalphotographyguy.com.