Stellar's Sea Cow: The Defenseless Beast

Besides the Dodo Bird and Tyrannosaurus Rex, I have discovered a new extinct love: The Sea Cow. Some believe there have been sightings of it in the Bering area and Greenland. I hope that is true. It seems like such a large, loveable beast.

"The sea cow grew at least 8 metres (26 ft)to 9 meters or 30 feet long. According to Steller, "The animal never comes out on shore, but always lives in the water. Its skin is black and thick, like the bark of an old oak…, its head in proportion to the body is small…, it has no teeth, but only two flat white bones—one above, the other below". It was completely tame, according to Steller. They fed on a variety of kelp. Wherever sea cows had been feeding, heaps of stalks and roots of kelp were washed ashore. The sea cow was also a slow swimmer and apparently was unable to submerge.

Fossils indicate that Steller's sea cow was formerly widespread along the North Pacific coast, reaching south to Japan and California. Given the rapidity with which its last population was eliminated, it is likely that aboriginal hunting caused its extinction over the rest of its original range (aboriginal peoples apparently never inhabited the Commander Islands).

Photoshop Playing

I only have Maya and Photoshop on my computer at work, so sometimes I come up with little projects to play around with. Here are a few...

A Beat of Reality

I almost moved far, far away...

to the other side of the world.

I may have decided to stay,

but that doesn't mean I am the same.

There are so many grand things to do in life,

and now I've opened my eyes and realized-

that I'm not stuck anywhere.
I will end up where my heart decides,
which doesn't mean it's on the other side of the world.

Fairy Photo Shoot of Zahra

Zahra is a beautiful dancer and a complete sweetheart. These are some photos I took with my toy camera of her. It's on Fuji medium format.

Feeling Dehumanized...

Perhaps a strong indicator of how dehumanized many of us are is the fact that we have much stronger feelings of excitement about the weekend approaching, rather than mourning and sorrow over all the catastrophes currently happening all over the globe- even right around the corner.

I mean wtf is this with Arizona? How can they possibly pass such a racist law? And now Oklahoma is eyeing a similar law! How can this land of immigrants be so incredibly racist. Is anybody out there seriously a native U.S. American? Well no... unless you were related to one of the native americans or perhaps that British that exterminated them.

The Daily News states that the passage of Arizona's controversial SB 1070, which calls for police in that state to use "reasonable suspicion" to question and detain possible undocumented immigrants, is supported by 51% of Americans, a new Gallup Poll says." Since when can a police officer arrest you simply because you look foreign so you must be an illegal immigrant. Are these police men even that smart? They're just going to make their decisions based on their opinions and judgments of factors including skin color and accent.

At a Tea Party rally in Ramona, California on Saturday, Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter told the conservative crowd that he supports the deportation of children of illegal immigrants. These are kids! Seriously what kind of human being is Duncan Hunter?


Then there's the oil spill. Oil, one of our most expensive commodities that so many human beings have died over  is now not only lost, but is also contaminating our already endangered and polluted oceans and killing thousands of species of fish. Here's an interesting article about what's happening.  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/04/29/financial/f044405D85.DTL

So I feel very guilty... I shouldn't be happy that my weekend is here. Maybe this is life, one catastrophe after another, maybe that's the culprit of our dehumanization.

Timur & The Dime Musem

Timur's been working with his band on a new album. They've been spending long hours at the Catasonic Studio in Echo Park. I got to spend time with the gang last night. Here are some photos from the recording session. I even got to play a little bit with Daniel's adorable toy piano, (they're using it on a NIN cover of "Closer".)

I think the album is going to come out pretty amazing. You can hear some of their music on their myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/timurandthedimemuseum

Their next performance is going to a part of the ALOUD Series in downtown Los Angeles on June 10th. They're the featured performers a week after our beloved John Waters. That's a pretty amazing artist to follow! 

Abandoned Worlds...

During lunch today, Timur and I were talking about his album cover for his band's new album, "Timur & The Dime Museum; The Permanent Collection". He had a beautiful idea of an abandoned museum with strange artwork and it inspired me to delve into researching imagery of abandoned buildings and the uninhabited, forgotten worlds of the past. It's actually something I've always been fascinated with and find so nostalgic. It would be a dream to live in an overgrown, abandoned castle.