reasoning: hugh jackman

so i have fascinations and i like to figure out why...

so first up hugh jackman. in one word: range. if the person that can be this:



can also do this:



i am in love. must go see wolverine this week.

cult classic: josie and the pussycats

if you grew up in the pop craze of the late 1990s, the satire is palpable.
[btw, what ever happened to rachel leigh cook, i liked her!]

passion: gene kelly "singing in the rain"

famously performed by gene kelly [another crush] with a 103 fever...
so um get it together.

seek passion for what you do, that you will damn there die for it. i love the ol skool musicals because these people had talent ooozing from their ears. such dedication and creativity, more to come from this era.

inspiration: incubus "drive"

[Sometimes, I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear
And I can't help but ask myself how much I let the fear
Take the wheel and steer

It's driven me before
And it seems to have a vague, haunting mass appeal
But lately I'm beginning to find that I
Should be the one behind the wheel

Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there
With open arms and open eyes yeah

Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there
I'll be there]

it rang true in 2001 and definitely still reverberates.
must make this concert happen this summer.

design: wiispray

WiiSpray Teaser from Martin Lihs on Vimeo.

after the initial cool factor washed away, this sparked a ponderance that i will expand later. until then, this is still pretty effin' cool.

film fav: shakespeare in love

a lovely person has uploaded the whole thing... so there are no excuses. joseph fiennes [one of my omitted crushes] as the man himself and gywneth paltrow as his muse, viola. its romantic and funny and even won some oscars. press play.

peep this: kanye west "amazing"

Amazing from kwest on Vimeo.

so apparently kanye has changed it up a bit [cut his hair, chilled out on the attitude since south park went in for the kill...] but he maintains his love affair with hype williams with this new video.

i don't like to pass judgment [i have neither robe or halo] but here's my opinion:
there has to be median between beautiful imagery and beautiful women in hip-hop videos, i know there is one... there can even be storylines, concepts, characters, you know, a narrative. and as this song is distinctive and quite powerful, it is also redundant, meaning that the video must be engaging to keep you in it. this engaged me mainly because i am a pyromaniac and that bonfire was raging. the hawaiian landscape is breathtaking [added bonus their area code is 808] but even that can only get you through the first rounds of "amazings". peep it, but don't get your hopes up because this is not the same person who directed the mind-bending "welcome to heartbreak".

i think people are getting too caught up in the visual that they forget the story and if you can't find a story in your song [even if its basic and stereotypical] you might wanna rethink the whole thing altogether. i will commend them for staying true to the sound of the song, i think going over the top like "welcome to heartbreak" or the misunderstood "love lockdown" wouldn't have suited this track but they broke it down so much that it became boring.

this is a trend i think in videos, some champion beautiful graphics in a good way [t-pain ft. lil wayne can't believe it] but others fall short with no depth [ron browz jumpin' out the window] and others pull you into a mini-movie [solange t.o.n.y. or lupe fiasco ft. nikki jean hip-hop saved my life], while some manage to do both [kid cudi day n nite or kanye heartless] and others try but fall short and end up being quite confusing [rihanna rehab or jazmine sullivan lions tigers and bears].

i love music videos as they combine two things i love but its becoming, if it isn't already, a lost art.

crushes: pale to fair edition pt. 2

so i completely spaced and neglected quite a few of my favorites. and especially after that last post you should be able deduce that they are mostly actors. ahhh nothing puts out more energy than a innocent crush...

hugh laurie:actor, comedian, writer, musician, british import
[see: house m.d. & a bit of fry & laurie]


hugh jackman: actor, singer, dancer, producer, australian import
[see: x-men & the boy from oz musical]


gerard butler: actor, former lawyer, scottish import
[see: p.s. i love you & 300]



gael garcia bernal: actor, director, mexican import
[see: y tu mama tambien & the motorcycle diaries]


paolo nutini: singer, songwriter, guitarist, scottish import
[see: last request & rewind]



cillian murphy: actor, musician, irish import
[see: 28 days later & the edge of love]


tyson ritter: singer, bass guitarist, songwriter, model, actor
[see: it ends tonight & swing,swing]


ryan gosling: actor, producer, musician, canadian import
[see: the notebook & murder by numbers]


adrien brody: actor, jewish new yorker
[see: the pianist & love the hard way]


and as i finish up more are poppin'up so this will continue later....

epiphany: movies

for the first time in a long time, i went to the movies yesterday. i walked alone, on an overcast day down the dreary streets of rain soaked st. louis to my favorite artsy and overpriced movie theatre, the tivoli. i bought a ticket to the first movie coming up, bought my large popcorn with real butter and cherry coke and made my way to the front row. i was excited. the film was titled 'sin nombre'. i picked through my thoughts to remember what that meant, i knew nombre was 'name' and just deduced that 'sin' was the equivalent of sans. So no name, rather nameless. This is not a critique of the film, i will not go into its details. however, to me, it was brilliant.

it shook me. it shocked me, it made me wanna cry but i managed not to somehow, probably because my tears seemed to be worthless in this hellish third world as i sat there with my overpriced food, in cushy seats.

the images of a movie stay with me forever. from sitting there, my brain began to reel and contemplate the world i was just brought into. i realized through this that movies have taught me everything. i don't read as much as one would suspect, but since i am so visual, in love with narratives and language,and my parents got satellite when i was growing up, movies have been my teachers. i have seen tons now, half of which i have forgotten the names of but the images still come to me. for example, there was a film once about these latin criminals that had something to do with burning money, they may have been lovers, and i know for sure it was in spanish. but thats all i can conjure up now. but the imagery of their final standoff with the police is still playing in my head.

movies are how i learned about the world outside of my humdrum existence. i am the welcomed, invited voyeur being let into these worlds, real or imaginary, that could be related to mine somehow. oh the humanity of it. being connected without truly being connected through similar narratives and experiences. and me being rather introverted, but booming with curiosity, this allowed me to live through those on screen. all of sudden i felt as if i had knowledge of all these foreign things: sex, drugs, romance, death, killing, homosexuality, famine, disease, violence, war, abusive relationships..... the list goes on and on.

i never had the brain to create my own worlds but i could make the connections. my sensitivity could relate to the victims, the heroes, the lovers, the villains. somehow being completely insular like i was, i found the means to connect with others, even if they were characters. from this i believe came this empathy to relate to people now.

not much can shock me at this point. movies can still catch me off guard mainly in the terms of what they choose to show. how realistic they chose to be, how deep the stories goes unlike ones before it. there is always a new spin because there are millions of people living with millions of perspectives on this world, thus the same script would look different if every last one of us put on individual productions. movies are a way to look through someone else's point of view as best as possible, while also relating it to your own perspective and experiences.

don't want to ramble but this all hit me like a ton of bricks.

yeah, it was a good movie!

watch a good movie. it will do you some good to escape into another world for awhile.

design: d.k. wei

if sleeping on a cloud can't make you happy then i don't know what would.

taken from www.thedesignblog.org: "Very much like the Magnetic Floating Bed, the Cloud Sofa is nothing less than a design masterpiece. Designed for ultra comfort and relaxation, the Cloud magnetically levitating sofa is the most amazing sofa concept I’ve ever come across. The magnetic force generated by the base offers support for the verrry soft upper part of the sofa. It would be a great thing to work, relax or powernap on. Unlike the magnetic floating bed, it’s not tethered with any steel cables. The soft cloud-like chaise lounge received an honorable mention at the RELAX furniture design contest."

little things: the smell of spring

i know its spring when i can smell the green onions growing wildly around. i got a hint of it today, the first truly gorgeous day of this spring and just felt like everything was gonna be alright.

crushes: pale to fair edition

if you couldn't tell already, i am intelligent but i am also rather goofy and i am not taking this blog as a soapbox. i'm not that self righteous. but i am visually inclined meaning i do get crushes from time to time but more often than not, there is more to the person than what meets the eye which actually attracts me. so this is the pale to fair edition of my crushes [more to come i'm sure]. however, currently, these men just fascinate me.

russell brand: comedian, actor, radio host, writer, british import
[see: forgetting sarah marshall & ponderland]


jake gyllenhaal: actor, political and environmental activist
[see: brokeback mountain & jarhead]


brandon boyd: musician, artist, writer, surfer, environmentalist
[see: drive & warning]


johnny depp: actor, musician, wine-maker and restaurateur
[see: sweeney todd & benny and joon]



the order is kinda reverse chronological but clearly, i have a type.
who are your crushes?

if i had disposable income: karmaloop.com

it's good for the soul to dream.

audio: big boi "ringtone"

if you know me, then this is a no brainer, but if not i am a huge outkast fan. this song reminds me of home and just makes me smile. can't wait for their return. separate or together, they still outweigh most. hopefully jive don't keep doing them dirty in the promotion department. enjoy :)

hilarity: the mighy boosh

i was inadvertently raised on british humor and now i am falling in love with it all over again. for starters, lets look at the fantastical world of julian and noel a.k.a. the mighty boosh. be forewarned the songs will most likely get stuck in your head :) for more vids check out adultswim as the boosh has finally made it cross the pond.

idea: there is enough hate, what we need is philia

philia implies love in all it varieties. there is a span of love the goes beyond the romantic. friendship, sibling, parental, fanaticism [not to be confused with groupie-ism, i'm more of an enthusiast if anything].

the list goes on but as i define it, and yes i do have that power, as positivity, energy, and light that is transferred from one thing to another. there is nothing better to me than someone or something making me smile & laugh when all i want to do is indulge myself by wallowing. indulgence is indicative of pleasure and yes, i do think that there is a level of pleasure found in misery. its like watching yourself cry or regaling someone with how sorrowful your day was on some level brings a little bit of joy.

sometimes its the attention and other times its is truly just self indulgent. to be a lionized victim for all to see, take care of, and if nothing else, to mention. to know that someone took the time to step out of their own self obsessed nature to notice your plight. and i am not condescending because i do this myself but here is my conclusion upon it: it is destructive.

the twist that comes with mourning oneself is that you must self destruct as well. and that will not do. how can i sit here in this life that was given to me and spit back at it nothing but self hate? how ungrateful!

because this is what i think. we are all one and a million chances. we all fought through that tube to get to an egg before the rest of those eager little suckers did and proceeded to live. we fought for the chance at life then before we had any idea of what was in store. and with a touch of grace, you have made it thus far. so instead of whining, which i have come to find that a lot of young adults spend their time doing, focus on how lucky you are to be here in this moment. you cannot spend time judging the moment, because that is not your place. " oh this is worst time i will ever have ever! it cannot be worst!" actually yes it can and most likely it will. none of us have the scope of vision to gauge that, only god does. it is above you, so focus on what you were brought here to do.

if we are all inherently evil, with all types of dark chaos within us, then it is our duty to each other to bring in the light when we can. and if you are someone like me that feels as if she is bursting at the seams with it, you feel obligated to share. i have had someone tell me that i have the light of god in me [no disrespect in non-capitalizing, just trying to be consistent], that i am so talented, so artistic, so creative, so smart, so so so many things that tell me that what i do through action or example has an effect.

i am a good one for metaphors, so i once compared myself to the sun. not in a narcissistic way, but in the emission of light way. in the sense that the sun is this huge star, slowly but viciously burning away at itself until one day, it will explode. so this is me letting the energy out to all of those who see my light and want to spread the love like me.

welcome to philiadose: injecting love on the regular with all the things that i hope will make you think, laugh, sing, dance, ponder, inspire and at best change the cycle of self destruction to something a bit more positive.

just smile people! i mean get a pet or something :)

you are a walking winning lottery ticket.
start acting like what you are worth.

stay tuned for your daily doses.