My Latest Desktop Background
I was feeling a little bit vaudeville so today I made this. Everything, will be fine. It always is.
Photo + typography by Jenni Rempel. Lyric via Jason Mraz and his beautiful song Details in the Fabric.
Click the image to download the full version.
So i’m sure by now you have seen Rebecca Black’s video for the song Friday. It is not the best song on the planet, but it has brought laughter to millions of people. WIN. What bothers me about this isn’t the laughter, but the hateful comments. Imagine if that awkward video you made at the beginning of high school was publicly broadcast all over the internet and millions of people watched it. I had some good ones in my day ahah. Overall though, I’m sure we’ve all had an experience with hate towards us. In high school someone left some cruel messages on my answering machine one day and i’ll be honest. It didn’t feel good. I’ve moved past that incident and forgiven those people, but I can’t imagine experiencing that on the scale that Rebecca Black has to deal with. She gets my major admiration. Plus, if she hadn’t made this song, then this awesome band Tucker wouldn’t have made their awesome acoustic cover! LOVE IT!
In all seriousness though, let’s all show some compassion. I think we should all grow up… so Rebecca has the chance to.
BE LOVE.
There is something I find unbelievably catchy and addictive about Bo Burnham. Even when I initially don’t like a song of his, it grows on me… like a fungus.
From the ringing bell at the beginning playing homage to school aged days, to the moving final chorus, I am undoubtably hooked.
Sometimes I have perfect timing. Arriving on the sky train platform just as the train arrives, bumping into someone in a strange and random place, JUST catching the bus… I could go on.
Yesterday I experienced amazing timing. I was on my way to the final awards presentation for the Global Agents Micro Credit Challenge, an event which I have been promoting extensively as part of my LEAD program team project. They had asked me to make a video/slideshow compilation of the project so as I took the sky train to the Global Agents HQ I edited some photos and videos together. My laptop battery was at 20% so I tried to be really efficient. I finished the project and then exported the final video with 8% battery remaining. I had my fingers crossed as I exported the video. With 1% battery remaining I transferred the video to my flash drive, ejected the flash drive and closed my laptop to avoid losing everything I had open. *phewf* OH, and this all happened just as I arrived at my sky train stop! As I was walking to the awards presentation I bumped into my friends Diana and Justin from IATSU! They had just come from a conference our Faculty put on (which I missed out on but wanted to attend). Perfect! I arrived at the awards event on time and really enjoyed seeing all of the creative ideas the teams came up with. Check out all the photos from the event here!
now… GO HAVE YOURSELF AN ADVENTURE : )
On Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending the rally in Victoria to unite BC students for public education. I encountered so many interesting and inspiring personalities. It was a day of good photos, good conversations, and good moments.
Highlight included: the dance party at the legislature (fist pump with a sign!! woo!!), talking to SO MANY AWESOME PEOPLE, making new friends, taking photos, catching up with people from my past, RECYCLING with this random girl (we combed all the garbage from the event for recyclables) and getting to BE LOUD!
Overall this event reminded me about my previous protest experiences. I think it is important for people to come together and unite in solidarity. Using your voice is an important part of democracy and these event give people a chance to do so. Sometimes, it’s important to have the fight. (but that said I think it’s all about building people up and being positive about it, YAYYY not boo)
Check out the Facebook Album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?fbid=10150444104995608&id=520340607&aid=636029
Or view my Flickr photostream for more: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jremps
Generally, if something happens more than once I assume it is a trend. Suddenly “everyone” is doing it and it doesn’t even take 3 people haha.
Right now, everyone in the music industry is making short films. Kinda interesting. I’m glad they are bring attention to this medium, however, as one of the people in the videos above pointed out to me (guess who? BEST DAY EVER), “I’m a musician, not an actor.” I guess sometimes skills such as acting and skills such as being able to reach a large audience hold different value. If those videos featured random local actors I doubt they would have the thousands of views they have acquired… and then I would have seen them : )
GO MAKE COOL STUFF.
I made this on the skytrain today : )
It was fun to expand my positive vocabulary thinking of all the words to write : )
Don’t just think about love, or try to love, or wish for love… BE it. With all of your BEing.
You’re invited to…
US & THEM: the inquiry.
A THEATRE FOR LIVING WORKSHOP (hosted by Jenni Rempel)
Monday, March 21st at 5:30PM
SFU Burnaby, Room BLU 10021.
WHY DO PEOPLE…
+ Hoard food or money?
+ Over consume with no regard for others or the planet?
+ Racially profile?
+ Witness hardship and even atrocity and not reach out?
+ Plan and carry out the annihilation of cultural or ethnic groups?
+ Pollute someone else’s “back yard”?
+ Drop (so many different kinds of) bombs on people?
+ Turn a blind eye, a deaf ear?
What makes all these, and so many other ways that we compromise the planet’s and humanity’s well-being, possible? The creation, over and over, of “the other”: the creation of the “them” in “us and them”. If global warming teaches us anything, it must be that on this tiny, fragile blue speck hanging in the middle of a vast nothingness, there is nowhere to go. Inside this reality in which humanity lives, who are “they”? A new revolution is required on the planet. Somehow, we must find a way to let go of our mechanistic need for certainty – our need to know that “we” are right and entitled and therefore “they” must be wrong and not entitled. We must find a way to relax into the certainty of UNcertainty – to know that in whatever geography, whatever politic, whatever context, there is no certain “them”; there is only an ever-evolving us.
WHAT IS “THEATRE FOR LIVING”?
Theatre for Living has evolved from Augusto Boal’s “Theatre of the Oppressed”. Humans think in metaphor. Theatre is a metaphoric language. Combining this with the immediacy of flesh and blood authentic stories makes theatre a very powerful medium for self-reflection and transformation. Us and Them hopes to live in a territory of what John Paul Lederach calls constructive social change. He defines this in his book The Moral Imagination as:
“…the pursuit of moving relationships from those defined by fear, mutual recrimination, and violence toward those characterized by love, mutual respect, and proactive engagement. Constructive social change seeks to change the flow of human interaction in social conflict from cycles of destructive relational violence toward cycles of relational dignity and respectful engagement.”
In this workshop we will use a technique called The Rainbow of Fear and Desire to explore many impluses present in a single conflict. Workshop participants may be directly involved in the action by performing or may choose to observe and be indirectly involved.
ABOUT THE HOST…
Jenni Rempel is certified by Headlines Theatre, after having completed the Rainbow of Desire Group Workshop Facilitator Training. She comes with a background in leadership, training and over 10 years of theatrical performance and directing experience. She is an SFU Student studying Interactive Art + Technology and Communications.
Great minds think alike? : P
So the other day I went to this kind of secluded, somewhat sketchy restaurant to have a bit of an awkward conversation. When I walked in it was pretty empty, there were only two or three other people dining. It was funny, I noticed: two truckers eating together, a couple, a lonely guy… and it gave me this cool idea of a short film. The restaurant felt a bit secret and I couldn’t help but imagine that everyone dining there was part of a secret. Sort of a secret place, where people take their secrets. The place was a bit of a hole in the wall, a quiet place… and it felt like a metaphor for the quiet secret places we hide things from ourselves.
I made up stories about the people I saw… people breaking up, people having an affair, people with secret sexual identities, secret lives, fake names…
Hmmmm. Inspiration comes in the strangest forms.
i'm on an adventure! 