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Columbus House to hold 'Chocolate to the Rescue' event to help Middletown family shelter
Columbus House, Inc. of New Haven will hold its 13th Annual Chocolate to the Rescue Event to benefit its Middlesex Family Shelter from 1 to 4 p.m. March 29 at the: Inn at Middletown, 70 Main St. Middletown.
The event "attracts some of the finest chefs in the area. The event is a must for the serious chocolate lover," and is a fundraiser for families with children experiencing homelessness, organizers said in a release.
All proceeds will benefit the Middlesex Family Shelter, which is a program of Columbus House.
Sponsors: Guilford Savings Bank, Middlesex Hospital, Rose & Kiernan
Why: According to the "Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, about 25% of the 13,600 people who experience homelessness in our state each year are children and youth. In Middlesex County specifically, there are about 230 people on the street or in shelters on any given night, including over 30 children from 20 families.
The event will include "some of the best chocolate creations in the region" and guests will be able to vote for their favorites, the release said There also will be an auction of various items from merchants, the release said.
Admission is $30. Register for the event at www.columbushouse.org/chocolate in the "Events" section. A limited number of tickets may also be purchased at the door for $35.
Participants are: A Little Imagination Cakes, It's Only Natural Restaurant, NoRA Cupcake Co., and Tschudin Chocolates, all of Middletown; Marjolaine Pastry Shop, and MELT Chocolatier, of New Haven; Purple Carrot Foods, of West Haven; and Sweet Sage Bakery, of Rockfall.
Judges include: Chef Neil Fuentes - "The Singing Chef;" Joan Gordon, a food writer and restaurant reviewer; Tommy Julianno, a pastry chef; and Lee White, a food editor and restaurant reviewer.
Last year, "Columbus House served over 2,500 clients through outreach and street-engagement; shelters for single adults and families with children; transitional and permanent supportive housing; programs for seniors, veterans, formerly incarcerated individuals, and those living with HIV/AIDS; along with addiction, health, and employment services," the release said. "Columbus House now operates in four counties and has programs in a dozen facilities."
For more information about the event, call 203-401-4400 x150 or email email@example.com


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Looking Forward to 2014
I spend a lot of time on this blog reflecting on my teaching and what happens in and around my classroom. That makes sense, since this is, primarily, a blog about what happens in and around my classroom. But I also spend a lot of time off the blog reflecting on my personal expectations for Adventures in Teaching Fourth. I don't write about this nearly as much, but today I will make an exception because a) it is December 31, b) I just reviewed my official WordPress Annual Report and c) it is early in the morning and my herbal tea is still steeping, so I don't have much else to do right now.
I suppose that before I get into what I expect of this blog, I should review my stated purpose for blogging. This can be found in my blogging manifesto (which I have recently reviewed and updated for the fourth time), borrowed and adapted from an online colleague's blog, that can be found in the upper right-hand corner of the page. I won't copy it all here, but the section on my rights and responsibilities is particularly relevant to this topic:
As an educator who chooses to blog, I have the following rights:
- I have the right to use my blog to reflect on my teaching journey, honestly and openly.
- I have the right to collaborate with educators from all over the world.
- I have the right to wonder what is best practice, debate education policies/practices/teaching styles, and question what is not working within our system in general and my classroom specifically.
- I have the right to use my blog to process a difficult day, as long as I stay within the limits of the responsibilities listed below.
As an education blogger, I have the following responsibilities:
- I will never forget the purpose for why I'm blogging.
- I will always write about my students in such a manner that if parents found this blog they would know that I respect every aspect of their child's learning.
- I will always write about my co-workers, including all members of the faculty and staff of the buildings in which I work, in a way that reflects their strengths.
- I will not write anything that will prevent anyone, especially myself and my colleagues, from doing his or her job.
By acknowledging these rights and responsibilities, I will be better able to:
- Communicate with educators, parents, and others from all over the world
- Become more reflective in my teaching
- Improve my teaching practices to best benefit my students
- Find the silver linings inside the most frustrating of days
- Keep a sense of humor, which, in turn, allows me to be a stronger teacher who comes back to work day after day inspired, energized, and ready for a challenge.
To summarise all of those bullet points, my purpose in blogging about teaching is to reflect on what I am doing in a way that is positive, productive, and helpful. I often use an acronym to help my students quickly reflect before they say or do anything. I thought I'd shared this before, but I can't find it, so I am guessing I never did. It is fairly simple: THINK! Ask yourself the following questions:
Likewise as a teacher, I need to THINK before I post anything online, especially if it is about students, parents, colleagues, or administrators! What this means in practice is that if there is a part of my day that is frustrating, I can still write about it, but I can do so in a way that will help us process what worked well, what didn't, and what we can do better the next day.
I also use my blog as another way to communicate with parents, teachers, and members of the community. I include my URL on every newsletter I send home, it is linked by my name on my school's website, and links are shared publicly through a variety of social networking services, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Tumblr. (And yes, that is just another of the many reasons that I will NEVER use the name of a student on my blog and I will ONLY use the name of colleagues or other adults with explicit permission.)
So, getting back to that original question, what do I expect for Adventures of Teaching Fourth in 2014?
I'm not really sure.
I know I want to continue what I have been doing: blog each day I am with students to share at least one highlight of the day. Think about what I am doing and why I am doing it. Invite others to read and share these posts. Keep track of the books I have been reading, particularly those that relate to my work, regardless of genre.
I also know what I would love to see happen: more comments. I know that I have on average 40 unique visitors to my blog each day, but I have no idea who these people are or why they are coming. I would be delighted to see more parents visiting and leaving brief comments, anonymous or not, to let me know they are reading and discussing with their children; for teachers, administrators, and other interested parties to share their thoughts; for suggestions on what I can do better in teaching and/or on topics to write about in the future. But I also have to be completely honest here: if I did not have a single visitor to my blog, I would continue to write. I am doing this primarily for me, to keep track of what I am doing. I share it with others because it is a medium I enjoy using and believe that others enjoy, as well.
The coming year is going to be a great one! Thank you, one and all, for being a part of my journey. I look forward to continuing to reflect on my own adventures!
Football and Math
I'm not a particularly athletic guy. I ride my bike whenever I can, but, due to factors like having no depth perception and possibly exercise-induced asthma (or something very similar to it), I don't do many other things that are sports-related. However, I've generally had an interest in sports, although it has definitely ebbed and flowed over the years. Right now, for example, my greatest interest is in championships games/series and college basketball. I also keep my eye on college football. I also really enjoy keeping up with sports that aren't as popular in the United States, like rugby and soccer.
And yet somehow I managed to use football (American football, that is) concepts to teach a geometry lesson today.
Shocking, right?
Don't worry; I was probably just as surprised! I don't think any of my students were, though, possibly because they don't actually realise that I don't play sports.
I am sure you are wondering how I came about using football to teach geometry today, anyway. It wasn't actually planned. I was teaching the students about the different methods of classifying triangles: by the angles (acute, right, or obtuse) and by the sides (scalene, isosceles, and equilateral). We had gone over the classification of angles yesterday, so it was an easy transition from angles to triangles. Classification by sides was a little more difficult, especially because the words are rather unusual.
A scalene triangle has no equal sides. There is no other word we use in English that has a similar or related meaning, so there's no easy way to make a connection between scalene and unequal sides. (If you know a strategy that works, please, please, please share it with me!)
An isosceles triangle has two equal sides. This one is also difficult to equate to its meaning because we don't use very many words that start with iso- in our language. (There are quite a few, actually, but they tend to be technical words.) Iso- is a Greek affix that means equal. -sceles comes to us from Greek as well, and it is a word that we may think we recognise: skelos, which means leg. (You may be thinking this is the root for the word skeleton, but, alas, that is not correct. But if it helps to make the connection, I support that!) But since we don't use these Greek words often in our language, we are again stuck with find our own memory trick.
The third type of triangle, an equilateral triangle, is actually much easier for us to decode. The prefix equi- means equal and we use it in a wide variety of words. The second part of the word, -lateral is a word that we have seen in our class when learning about quadrilaterals, but some of the students were having trouble remembering what it means. And this is where the football reference came to the rescue.
Several of the boys in my class play football. One of the boys is actually the son of the Urbana Junior Football League coach. I have a miniature football in my classroom so I brought it out and asked if anyone knew what a lateral pass was in football. Some had heard the term but weren't sure of the actual meaning. So I had one of my football players demonstrate it with me. We showed the difference between a forward pass and a lateral pass and I asked again: what do you do when you execute a lateral pass? Several students realised it was simply throwing the ball to the side instead of forward. I asked, "So if the lateral pass is a pass to the side, what does lateral mean?" Then the lights went on and almost everyone called out the answer: lateral means side! That means that an equilateral triangle is a closed figure with three equal sides!
Using football to teach geometry today reminded me of this scene from Mr. Holland's Opus when Mr. Holland, the music teacher, has to explain to his principal why he is using rock and roll music in the classroom:
Principal Jacobs: "Mr. Holland, I do not want to interfere in the curriculum of any teacher. But next week, I have a meeting with the school board. And there are people in this community who believe that rock and roll is a message sent from the devil himself. Now when that issue comes up, what can I tell them?"
Mr. Holland: "Mrs. Jacobs, you tell them that I am teaching music, and that I will use anything from Beethoven to Billie Holiday to rock and roll, if I think it'll help me teach a student to love music."
Likewise for me. I will use whatever it takes to help students find the connective tissue between what they are learning and what they already know!
Finding the Main Idea
Determining the main idea of a text is one of those crucial skills related to reading comprehension that we learn in fourth grade. It is a topic we have touched on throughout the year, but today I wanted to make a major focus on this, using explicit and implicit details as the foundation.
This is not anything new to my fourth grade classroom, but it was something new for us this year. (For example, you can read what I've done in the past here, here, and here.) As I have done in the past, I used one of my all-time favourite authors as the basis for our discussion: Dr. Seuss. His stories are wonderfully simple on the surface but have deeper meanings that make them valuable for children and adults alike.
To start the lesson, I introduced the key words and asked the students if they knew what they meant. A few had an idea of what it meant for something to be explicit, such as it being "right there" or "very clear." I gave an example of a parent giving explicit directions to take out the trash or make the room. Implicit was a little more difficult for them to articulate. So I gave another example from home: a student gets home and her mom asks her to "keep an eye" on her little sister. What does that mean? One student said, "It means to watch her." To which I responded, "Okay, so you are watching your sister as she climbs up on the roof and jumps off into the snow with an umbrella, thinking she can fly. You did what your mom asked, right?" I was immediately corrected and told that you have to make sure that your sister is being safe. I asked how they knew that. When someone else explained that it is known because you understand what your parents mean, I pointed out that this is an example of drawing inferences by using implicit details. The class then articulated that implicit details are the ones that you understand from context without being told directly.
This was a literacy lesson, though, so I then tied it to the book we are using for our read aloud: Hattie Big Sky. I askec for examples of explicit details from the story. Some of the ones students gave were the name of the main characters (Hattie Inez Brooks, Perilee Mueller, Rooster Jim, Traft Martin, etc) and key details from the plot (Hattie inherited her uncle's Montana homestead claim, she writes letters to her friend Charlie who is serving in the army in France, Hattie owes $220 for fencing supplies that her uncle bought on credit). Then we tried to tease out some of the implicit details: Hattie's relationship with Charlie seems to be more than just friends, Hattie's thoughts on the value of friends and loved ones over everything, etc.
I made a point of differentiating between the plot, which uses explicit details (characters, setting, what happens first, second, third) and main idea, which uses implicit details to express the author's message (sometimes called the lesson or moral of the story). We finally got to Dr. Seuss and discussed the plot and main idea of well-known stories such as How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Horton Hears a Who, and The Lorax. After doing all this, the students got together in their reading groups and worked on writing summaries and identifying the main idea of their respective books: The Watsons Go To Birmingham–1963, Heaven, One Crazy Summer, and The Hundred Penny Box.
I feel that most of the students have quickly grasped these concepts. We will more on them more throughout the week and then build on these concepts throughout the year. We will also look at the difference between the main idea of a work of fiction compared to the main idea of a nonfiction text. (There are, of course, similarities, too.) All things considered, I feel like today was an excellent start to what will be a common theme in my classroom!
A Cappella
Fourth graders have an amazingly wide variety of interests. This is one of the reasons that I absolutely love teaching this grade level. Not only are they interested in just about everything in the world (as am I), they are willing to share these interests with anyone and everyone at any given moment!
About a month ago or so, some of the fourth grade girls in the two classes started sharing songs that they had written and/or learned with me and the other fourth grade teacher. They usually did this during recess, breaking out into song without much warning. My fourth grade partner, being the wonderfully intuitive person that she is, started finding YouTube videos of a cappella groups and sharing them with her class. She mentioned this to me, and then we both mentioned it to our music teacher.
That was all it took to get the ball rolling on another fantastic arts infusion project. The University of Illinois has a number of award-winning a cappella groups. The music teacher reached out to them and asked if they would be willing to do a performance for our fourth graders. One of the groups said they could do so, but they asked for payment that was quite simply outside our school's budget. Another group, though, offered to do so at a discounted price. Then we learned about a grant opportunity through an arts-in-the-schools benefactor from New York. An application was made and she agreed to fund the visit!
Over the past two weeks, the fourth graders have been learning about a cappella music during our arts infusion time. They have also been preparing for this visit, thinking about questions they could ask the performers and how a cappella would differ from the music they hear on the radio or other places.
The University of Illinois Rip Chords, an all-female a cappella group, came this afternoon and performed for all of the intermediate grades. The first piece they did was our school's theme song for the year: Brave by Sara Bareilles.
After singing a variety of other songs, including You Make My Dreams Come True by Hall & Oates and Signed, Sealed, Delivered by Stevie Wonder, the Rip Chords took questions from the students. I was so happy that the fourth graders' questions were meaningful and relevant to the type of music they were listening to! After several questions, the Rip Chords closed with a signature number, their cover of Yesterday by The Beatles.
It was a great way to end the day! A huge thank you to our music teacher, to our benefactor from New York, and our fourth grade students who shared their interests and got us all thinking about this unique musical style!

subset: commoncrawl


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January began for me with a trip to Windsor Park to see Linfield take on Coleraine, a match which resulted in a disappointing 1-0 defeat for Linfield.
It was then the Irish Cup for me, heading to The Oval to see Linfield get an extra-time win over Glentoran.
The following Saturday, another away game for Linfield, this time to Glenavon, and another 2-1 win for Linfield.
It was back to Windsor Park the following Saturday to see Linfield take on Ballymena United.
My football watching for the month ended with a trip to Stangmore Park to see Linfield secure a 4-1 win against Dungannon Swifts.


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Prince's Sister Wants To Unlock The Vault and Release It All
"We have to preserve everything. So as soon as we can release it, don't worry, we sure will."
Tyka Nelson, sister and newly-appointed heir to the Prince estate, wants the crack the vault for good and release it all.
READ: Princeology: A Timeline Breakdown of Prince's Estate A Year Later
A recent interview with The Sun found Nelson announcing her mission to the world in the fallout of a deal with Universal, who backed away from purchasing the vault — rumored to contain thousands of hours of unheard and unseen material — when parties could not agree as to precisely what should be released from the mythical chamber. Nelson went on to detail plans of opening a music school in north Minneapolis for underprivileged children, a design she claims her brother bestowed upon her prior to his untimely death. Whether she can summon the legal powers of her estate — no longer under the careful watch of longtime estate lawyer Londell McMillan — is an entirely different matter.
READ: Prince Was The Best Selling Artist of 2016
For now, fans can enjoy an expanded edition of Purple Rain, released at the top of the summer. Hit the link below to pick up your copy via iTunes today.


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First day of TRNSMT gets off to a sizzling start
The gates have opened on Glasgow Green for the TRNSMT festival with 40,000 music fans expected to flock to the site to watch performances from acts, including Jessie J, James Bay, The Script and headliners, Stereophonics.
One of the most talked about guests today has undoubtedly been the sunshine, which led to event organisers advising people to look after themselves while they enjoyed the music.
Says Alan McWilliam, onsite medical manager: "We've had a positive start to the event with 15 people presenting to medical for minor ailments. It's a real scorcher today and it looks set to continue for the rest of the weekend so we advise fans to make sure they use sun screen throughout the day and to keep hydrated – especially if they're drinking alcohol. There's free sun cream available at welfare as well as free water points across the site."
Says Superintendent David Pettigrew, Police Scotland: "Public safety is our top priority and the event has started very positively. We encourage those attending over the rest of the weekend to come prepared for the warm weather and to know what they can and can't bring on site so they can have an enjoyable festival. Remember that there are no legal drugs and if you do attempt to bring any onsite, you will be arrested. Don't take the risk of ruining your weekend before it's even started."
Says Geoff Ellis of DF Concerts & Events: "There's few places more beautiful in the sunshine than Glasgow and from the moment Picture This kicked things off on the main stage, the atmosphere has been unreal."
"We've got two whole weekends filled with incredible names, the most delicious street food, the greatest audience in the world and to top it off, the best weather we've seen in Scotland in a long time."


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John Clements Consultant is an institution accredited by TESDA that offers Technical and Vocational Education and Training Programs (TVET) under the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).
John Clements Consultant
Address: 2 B LKG Tower 6801 Ayala Avenue Makati City, Philippines
Telephone Number: 845-2002-04; 895-9095
Website: http://www.johnclements.com
John Clements Consultants, Inc. was founded in November 1974 by the late Mr. Leocadio J. Dominguez, an accomplished Corporate Executive and CPA with an MBA from Harvard Business School, together with Mr. John W. Clements, a well-known Psychology Consultant in Australia. During that time, Executive Search was the pioneering business and flagship of the John Clements Consultants Group. As the pioneer in the industry, John Clements Consultants had to educate the market before creating a market niche.
After overcoming the challenges of growth for almost three decades, the company now stands stronger than ever. From its initial venture in executive search, other divisions and companies have been formed comprising the John Clements Consultants Group.
Since its inception in 1974, John Clements Consultants, Inc. has grown into one of the largest consulting firms in the Philippines today, with a leadership position in the local market and a strengthening presence in the international scene, notably in Asia, the Middle East, and the US. While it has grown in size and business interests, locally and internationally, and prospects of further expansion remain in the horizon, the John Clements Consultants Group has maintained its focus on its core competencies: recruitment and training.
TESDA Approved Programs
Here is the list of available TESDA registered programs and short courses offered in "John Clements Consultant" in the City of Makati.
List of Tesda Courses Offered / Registered Programs
|Course Authorized
|Finishing Course for Call Center Agents
|100 hours
Basic Requirements for TESDA Courses:
- At least 18 years of age
- At least High School Graduate
- Copy of NSO Birth Certificate
- With good moral character
- Undergone a pre-training assessment
- Can communicate both orally and in written form
Training Fees and Schedule
The cost of training and tuition fees may vary depending upon the specific course of interest and the school offering the training. Training centers also may have slightly different syllabus to teach to students in a class.
For inquiries, tuition fees, enrollment procedures, class schedule and other concern, it would be better that you visit their school/training center and inquire for other documents they may need.
Location and Contact Information
For further information, please contact the school directly at telephone number 845-2002-04; 895-9095. You can also visit John Clements Consultant. The assessment center is located at 2 B LKG Tower 6801 Ayala Avenue Makati City, Philippines.


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This video is part 4 in a 5 part series, summarizing the key steps and best practices when installing your Marvin or Integrity windows.
In this video, Marshall Baser demonstrates how to place the window in the opening, and shim it properly.
Watch Part 1: House Wrap, Part 2: The Opening: No Cutting Corners, and Part 3: Sill Panning: Protecting & Draining.
If you misplace the installation instructions that come with your windows, visit www.marvin.com or www.integritywindows.com to print them out.


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MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – The 2019 NESCAC men's swimming and diving championship weekend kicked off on Thursday evening on the campus of Middlebury College. The Cardinals "A" relay team (Jeffrey Haegelin, Jared Christopher, Max Wimer and Nicolas Moran) touched the wall in 7:19.90 which was good for 11th place overall. The "B" team composed of Andrew Schwartz, Garrett Kaufmann, Julian DeMann and Evan Sullivan, clocked in at 7:35.70.
Williams won the lone-event, the 800-yard freestyle relay, clocking in at 6:34.03. The time was a NESCAC, meet and pool record, as well as an NCAA B-cut consideration time.
Wesleyan is back in action on Friday with preliminary heats beginning at 10 a.m.
<< NESCAC Men's Swimming & Diving Championship Central >>
<< 2019 Digital Program >>
A live webcast will be available at NESCAC.com and on Roku, AppleTV, and Amazon Fire (search NESCAC Network). Results from the NESCAC Women's Swimming and Diving Championships will be available throughout the weekend at NESCAC.com and via the NESCAC Twitter account (@NESCAC).


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I've been doing one of those huge MP3 projects again. This time, I'm wading through all my 90s pop CDs that came out pre-MP3 boom in the late 90s, and transferring the cream of the crop to MP3. It's a lot of stuff – adding 400 some tracks to a general Pop folder that already had 800 or so songs.
The same thing happens every time I do these projects: it occurs to me that I no longer want to own certain CDs, and in some cases, jettison entire phases of certain artists' careers. All in utter astonishment at why I bought this shit in the first place. Sometimes, the bands do it for me in real time. I couldn't stand Radiohead's change of pace with Kid A, made the bad mistake of buying the electronic blip/blop follow-up, threw both out and swore to never again buy Radiohead product unless it featured two guitarists. The shock for me is that Kid A is their most popular album; it's a piece of shit.
(Sidenote: I can't use the excuse that I "was high, man." The only time I've ever purchased music while in any state of inebration was a strange Friday night shortly after I had just been dumped by a girl I can't even remember. I went out and got drunk with a few friends. Afterwards, since I was near the Tower on 4th and Broadway, I inexplicably headed over there and plunked down what was then a good chunk of change on the Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons box set -- on vinyl at the time. The next morning I woke up and thought this was totally nuts. But you know what? After playing the thing a few times, I realized it was a sound purchase, made under emotional duress.)
I now have a stack of about 30 CDs I'm going to junk. In the old days, I'd try to sell these, but now, I'd rather just throw them out then go through the whole Half.com process, which is a lot of work, to clear less than $100 over a few-month period. There are a few multiple-album dumpings. The White Stripes: after the first two albums, aside from a few songs I handily saved, the rest of their stuff sounds so bad to me. Boring, repetitive, wildly over-rated. Jack needs to stop dressing like a rodeo clown on acid and get back to business.
But the real revelation, which shouldn't have been much of one at all, was REM's output from the 90s on. Thus, the title of this posting … because the only REM I will now own harkens back to days of yore when Michael Stipe still had hair. And I'm not recognizing those days as being quite so golden. A few months earlier, I noted how surprised I was that a recent listening to REM's 80s material left me feeling that a lot of their music was overly precious college rock, mainly because of Stipe's murky poet image. The music was fine. Some of the songs are legitimately great: "So. Central Rain," "I Believe," "It's the End of the World As We Know It," "Talk About the Passion," "Good Advices," "Don't Go Back to Rockville," etc. The consistent weak point is the lead singer – not his voice, which is actually fine for the material. I'm talking lyrics and image more than anything.
They had enough great material that I could see why I was a huge fan at the time. The general vibe back then was that REM was akin to The Beatles, as The Replacements were to The Rolling Stones. And both were in a friendly competition to be the best indie band around. Then REM really took off with "The One I Love" and things escalated from there, to the point where they became something far from the cool indie band they once were. The last song I recall falling for was "Losing My Religion" – the video of which imparts where they were going wrong. Indulging in all sorts of artsy imagery, pompous in a "college sophomore on his first Camus jag" way, vague hints of Stipes' politics seeping into the music, etc. Sort of like U2, who followed a similar trajectory. Save you knew that was going to happen with U2 – REM should have never got that big. They were meant to be shaggy bohemians, not shaved-skull rock stars dressed like Johnny Bravo.
Luckily, The Replacements didn't become rock stars, and sucked when they tried. Paul Westerberg found his niche as a tasteful cult artist, but even that's been problematic. His albums are uniformly mediocre – just not enough good songs, plenty of songs that sound right, but aren't quite there. To read critics' reviews, you'd think he's doing Exile on Main Street every time out; he's not even doing Goat's Head Soup. The fan base seems to be filled with very odd people who treat Westerberg like a god and maniacally shout every lyric of every song at every show. (I don't remember Replacements shows ever being this way. They were fun. Not a church service for a bunch of people who never got past 20 in their emotional development. I don't mind 20-year-olds with this kind of mindset, although, again, Replacements fans back in the 80s seemed like a tough, cynical lot not prone to singalongs. But when you're 35?) As ambivalent as I feel towards Westerberg these days, his fate has been vastly preferable to that of REM.
Getting back to REM, I also recently bought the video collection of their early IRS material, and that was a fun watch. I see a lot of myself and how I was in the vibe of those videos, those college days of the mid-80s, when we were all making it up as we went along. I remember staying up late to watch the episodes the band did on the MTV show, The Cutting Edge, and thinking that's how it should be: a bunch of skinny kids on a shoestring budget, gallivanting all over the country in a van, sleeping on the living-room floors of fans when money got too tight for a hotel, jamming in big empty rooms, not taking it all too seriously. They lived in an abandoned church, man. A fucking abandoned church! Did I mention my friends and I once chatted with Michael Stipe in a graveyard on the campus of Bucknell University on a pre-Fables of the Reconstruction mini-tour? On campus at midnight after the show. A fucking graveyard, man!
But the 90s version of REM is just so awful. Michael Stipe, of course, is the key, but the rest of the band seems to have lost its ability to write good songs. "Man on the Moon"? This song is so bland and inoffensive – hardly a fitting tribute to Andy Kaufman. "Shiny Happy People"? Even if it's being ironic, it's still a deeply foul song. "Everybody Hurts"? I don't like Sean "Puffy" Combs, but I'll give him credit for lampooning this song in his "All About the Benjamins" video for being the hack pussy-work it is. "Nightswimming"? A song about skinny-dipping late at night. Written by a guy in his mid-30s. Who the fuck, in his mid-30s, still goes skinny-dipping? This is the kind of thing ROCK STARS do, as they rarely have to get up at 6:30 the next morning -- John Cougar could have written this song. "What's the Frequency Kenneth"? I guess this is the guys getting back to their "rock" roots. But it's boring as shit: a neat summation of REM's 90s output.
I can't even recall what the song was, but REM did a video where they showed up at a New York City high school to play for the kids. And the kids looked perplexed. I'm assuming most of them had no idea who REM was, and didn't care. So you have the visage of these increasingly haggard looking guys wearing these manufactured Chess King rock-star duds, jamming out on some tuneless song, for a bunch of kids who think they're a joke. All I could think was, "Once you make a few million dollars through a bogus record contract that the label wishes it could rescind in light of greatly diminished sales, reality becomes a distraction."
After wading through their 90s discs this past weekend, and salvaging four tracks from all of them, all I could think was, don't blame the band, blame me. I was an asshole for buying all these CDs long after it had been made clear to me that the band was phoning it in shortly after their first stadium tour.
Why did I do it? Partially out of loyalty, because the band genuinely meant something to me in the 80s, and I had faith enough in them that they'd somehow "find the magic" again, a false hope bolstered by critics who tend to make really bland albums by previously-indie bands like this sound like they're worth purchasing. (And they rarely are.)
I think a greater reason is cultural inertia. Which is to say, when something that was once good and right in our culture hangs around, despite the fact that it has seen better days, there's a strange cultural force that compels people to stick with it, full well knowing they'll be disappointed. I believe this force has kept the music industry afloat for decades. It's surely kept dozens of long-in-the-tooth bands around long, long past their prime. Part of that is nostalgia. You want to go on being the relatively innocent kid you were, plugged into a genuinely heartfelt and exciting experience. By buying that band's now-shitty albums, you go on having faith that they're still somehow the same people, as you are, too, by extension.
But part of it is just business. The album comes out, it garners anything from favorable to rave reviews, and after awhile you realize that when a record company throws seven and eight figure sums into signing a band (which is what inexplicably happened to REM in the early 90s), they want some ROI (Return on Investment) and are going to do everything they can to make this happen. I know REM's albums have sold like shit-flavored ice cream since the mid 90s. (And rightfully so!) But to gather by the tour support they routinely get (I hope they recoup some of that money on the road), the publicity for each album, and the critics in their back pocket, you can suss out that it would be in their best financial interest if you bought the album, even when you sense it's going to be a dog. (The last album I bought had a song called "Imitation of Life" which was a fantastic return to form the band – the rest of the album was so fucking bland and pointless, just not something I'd ever listen to again.)
For me, REM is the Alt 80s version of Rod Stewart, someone who plummeted from respectable creative heights (his first few solo and Faces albums are still incredible) to what we thought was horseshit ("Da Ya Think I'm Sexy" … followed by his 80s synth-pop period), but wasn't that bad compared to the absolute horseshit of Stewart singing standards. (Whoever's buying these albums, and someone is because they're sizable hits … fuck you. There's something really wrong with you. Allow me to reiterate: fuck you. If you want to hear standards sung a few thousand times better, drop me an email.)
The thing is, not many people are willing to bust REM on sucking at that same level. But they are. I'm sure they're still a bunch of nice guys. That Stipe can look you in the eye and have an earnest conversation that makes you think he's a wizened southern nut. And that Buck still has that cool record-store clerk countenance about him. And in Mills you can still see that gawky kid playing bass in a Georgia high-school marching band. But for the life of me, something died a long time ago, it started reeking like roadkill skunk on the Dixie Highway in late August, and it wasn't until a week ago that I finally came to my senses and buried it. My bad!


text:
10/11/12/13/14 / 1 1 / 2 0 1 4
F A S H I O N A N D T E X T I L E W E E K ( p a r t I, II and III)
I prepared this week during the independent study week. I went to the library and researched different fashion designer and artists that were related to deconstruction. I started with Martin Magiela, then I continued with Hussein Chalayan, Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Gracons, Rick Owens… As for artists I tried to know more about Roan Opalka that deconstructed time with his endless serie of numbers, Marcel Duchamp who decomposed movement in his early painted (like in Nude descending a staircase), the futuristes who decomposed movements (thanks to chronophotography), the cubistes who deconstructed and reconstructed images mixing different points of vue, or even th Surrealist who sometimes combined different realities to create a new recontruced reality.
My next step was to but my jacket, I found a vey interesting leather trench that had a lot of details that I believed would be interesting to work with. The material, leather was very soft and thine so working with it should be to hard (as I've heard that it was a complicated material and working could be complicated). Then I started to fo Fashion Illustrations. I like to start with collages, as abstract as I can get with only the suggestion of a silhouette, and a lot of materials, shapes and textures that I try to make cohabit ate in an harmonious way. Then I try form that abstraction to extract the sculptural shape, the combisaisons of color, the interesting textures and to make in step by step into a more figurative outcome.
I enjoye that process a lot, starting with an abstraction and extracting the figurative.
Then I made a small mood board to guide me in my experimentation, to give me ideas and inspiration. I spent quite a lot of time doing that as I believe it is one of the most important steps. It's a starting point that no one will see but will feel in the final outcome.
Then the week started, we experimented on the mannequin, on real people, we combined it with other garments, we drew it from different angles with different mediums. The exploration of the jacket had to be reflected in the exploration of mediums that we used to represent in (or that's how I understood the process that the teachers lead us into).
Then it was all about deconstruction, I started to undo almost all of the sewing so that it would be deconstructed, I played with it for a day truing different possibilities. I also added some linen and explored it's quality as a fabric. I chased this very fine, thine almost like veil material because I thought that it could contrast in an harmonious way with the thickness and the boldness of the leather.
I also enjoyed the last part of the week that consisted in getting inspired by your own work and to create textiles that could go with it. I tried to make my samples textural so that they could inspire me for illustrations and add volume to my sketches (I believe that adding 3D in a 2D sketches bring them to life).
Then on the independent study day I went back to the library and researched more in-depth fashion designers like Chalayan or Margiela. I also looked at different magazines to get inspiration for my workflow lay out and sketchbook, our two way of communicating our work.
03 04 05 06 07 / 1 1 / 2 01 4
F I N E A R T W E E K ( p a r t I II a n d III )
The first day was all about reflexion and exploration.
We had to think about what sort of meaning, of message, of questions, of narrative we wanted to transmit through this medium: paint. I had a lot of doubts between 2 D and 3 D, I thought that I could use this incertitude in my process. I thought of applying questions of the 3 D domain in the 2 D.
As a starting point we had to do collages. I thought that it was a avery good way to begin because the time period for this project was short so to start with all ready existing elements was both efficient and interesting.
It's interesting aesthetically wise because when you look at the pictures each of us has selected it says a lot about us, it unveils our fast for certain subjects, shapes and colors. But it's also interesting to represent (paint) imitating a representation (collage). It's a very deep process that could be reflected even further...
As I was saying before my aim throughout this project was to raise questions that applied to 3 dimensional elements to the 2 D.
That is what my first collages looked like. I wanted to do an anamorphose like The Ambassadeurs by Holbein, using the edges of the canvas so that the spectator would have to move around the painting (may be even tricking him thinking that the canvas was blank from a frontal point of view and from this chock the spectator would then question the piece an move around it looking for answers as in a 3 dimensional piece).
Here is the anamorphose ( on the left is a picture of the painting when you look at it form a frontal point of view and on the right is a picture of the painting when you look at it form a specific angle). The image is revealed by the movement. Then I went to buy a canvas but (after going to three different shops on monay night to that I could have it the next day) I couldn't find one with the edges thick enough to make this idea work...
So I still bought a canvas and thought that it could still be a part of my work. I thought more about this 3 diminutional aspect in a painting... and browsing in my computer I found a picture of a statue: The three graces.
And I thought that this sculpture was a very good inspiration. Why? Because it's a sculpture that you will never fell to see fully from one point, you have to rotate around the piece in order to see every faces of the protagonistes.
There is a real mystery that invites the spectator to do so, to try to find the clue to the meaning of this. I then decided that I would use three edges of the canvas the two sides and the front. I represented each grace on one side and used different mediums to represent them.
The first Grace is represented on the left side painted white on a mirror, these graces have an aestheical meaning an harmony, a beauty (that explains the mirror as it is an artifact of civilisation to acknowledge our appearance. In plus if the spectator doesn't position him self introit of the mirror he won't be able to see what is represented (the grace).
On the other side I used transfer so that it would be a representation (the transfere of a representation (the picture) of a representation ( the sculpture).
It's a Mise en abysm as the french says. Then for the front I did a low relief, so a sort of statue but, instead of making it understandable for a frontal point of view I made it look abstract from the front so that the spectator would have to rotate around the piece and realize that you can only see the third grace when you look on the sides and her profil, brest and legs are revealed.
When the moments of the Crits came, people said that they like my piece because of the interaction with the space the public and the painting. It's always attractive when you get to be a part of something (here a painting). Because that means that without a public the piece doesn't live. On Friday I still wanted to paint... But I didn't know on what... And I thought that there was one side of the canvas I didn't used. The back. I wanted to use again the anamorphose because I couldn't do it before so I modifies my approach to this idea. I mad a few more collages and the result was this.
I really enjoyed this week. It was very stimulating intellectually and I liked the ambience of the course. I'm not sure I want to become a fine artist but I wonder if I could use what I learn in this subject and apply it to an other subject to enrich it.
2 3 / 1 0 / 2 0 1 4
I n d e p e n d e n t s t u d y w e e k ( p a r t I )
During this independent study week my desire is to reflect on whet I want to specialize in. It has been clear to me in the past but recently, my perception toward Fashion has evolved. My experience of it with the different internships I did (clic here to see my RESUME) has reenforced my desire to pursue in that field. Yet I have a passion for Fine Art and most of my work (click here to see my previous WORK) so far has been oriented towards that way of thinking. I like to question, to speak throughout colors,shapes, textures, compositions, lines... Those meaningful elements that one has to try throughout an intellectual process to decipher. The quest of developping a personal plastic language is the one I pursued until now. Yet for a very long time I wanted to apply this process to Fashion and to make the human body the main protagonist of my reflexion. This is why this week I have the intention of creating a series of prototypes.
1 3 / 1 0 / 2 0 1 4
3 D D A ( p a r t I I I )
today I discovered something that I never experienced before, Jewelry Design.
More so I never had this sort of approach to Jewelry where we take in consideration, connecting, feeling, meaning, culture, suppression...
There's a whole meaning behind a piece of jewelry that I never explored before.
I wanted to conjugate the aesthetic and utility of the object, using what we learned the day before with the Product Design course.
I created a bracelet where you can store little objects, like keys, coins, small letters...
Something precious or personal that you would like to have next to you.
I would like to explore further this discipline,
experimenting the different materials, learning how to manipulate them.
1 4 / 1 0 / 2 0 1 4
3 D D A ( p a r t I I )
Today was a great experience.
Before today I never considered the idea of being a product designer but after this experience I think that I would be interested to try to go further with this areas.
I loved the analyzing the behavior, benign constrained by utility, trying to find different purport to an object, finding a concept, giving it an original aesthetic.
The slide show was fascinating, it's incredible to see what a commun object, a chair, can inspire an be a playful object, a beautiful object, a serious object...
I really liked the idea of exploring the different materials, a student from CSM created a boiled leather chair, that idea was very interesting and the utilisation of the material very original.
Then we had to create ourselves from the Robin Day chair a new customized chaire.
I decided to create a chaire that would be convertible.
Thanks to different foldable boards you could make the chair be a single chaire, a lounge chaire, and if you put it on it's side it could become a three person capacity bench.
Today has been a great experience, a great discovery.
1 3 / 1 0 / 2 0 1 4
3 D D A ( p a r t I )
Today we had to build out of bambou sticks a structure and cover it.
It was a group exercise.
I was surprised by how quick it was to build that structure.
I enjoyed joining together the elements. It was a playful experience.
But my favorite part was when we had to draw the work we build and try to give it a contexte, a life with collage and drawing.
It gave a whole different vision to our work. A structure became a building, a house, an office, a parcel...
It gave it a new dimension.
That process was quite fascinating.
0 9 / 1 0 / 2 0 1 4
F a s h i o n a n d t e x t i l e ( p a r t I I I )
Today was all about process.
It started with sketches and it ended with garments made out of pattern paper.
The first thing we had to do was to go out in the streets and find some buildings and architectural shapes that interested us.
I tried to walk fare away from the School, I found some very nice and very modern building with very geometrical shapes. I tried to retranscribe the texture with different the mediums I used charcoal for the bricks to give this scrubby surface, marker and white pencil to give a slippery filling to a drawing of a modern glass building...
Then we had to look at our drawings and make a selection of shapes that interested us.
Again it was like an abstraction that would leave space to our imagination and enable us to create.
Then we had to chose two shapes and cut them in big on pattern paper (a paper quite flexible).
Then within a short amount of time we had to explore the different ways we could adapte theses shapes on the body.
This was a great exercises. I required instinct and to consider the body and to create directly on in without any intermedairy(like drawing).
The drawing came after, we had to put together all of our shapes on to one body and draw it in different ways from different angles... as it was a very complexe arrangement.
Today was a thrilling experience we got to work on the body for the first time and it was a very playful and fascinating exercise, because it started with an abstract shape that came out of a drawing and it ended in a 3D garment.
It was like creating a brig between those two worlds (3D and 2D), imagination and reality.
It anchored in reality the ideas that we had.
And that was a beautiful experience.
0 7 / 1 0 / 2 0 1 4
F a s h i o n ( p a r t I I )
Today started with drawing from models.
We had to dress up the models ourselves with the pieces of clothing we thought interesting to draw (because they had an interesting print or color, an interesting texture, shape...).
We experimented different drawing techniques such as continuous line, blind drawing, switching mediums very minute, collage...
We had to use our experience from the previous day to create prints and cut them out and collage them on to our illustrations.
The whole process required one again a lot of spontaneity because it was a very fast rhythm and our responses were more instinctive then thoroughly thought.
That process resulted into an almost abstract textures or shapes that we had to fill in with figurative clues (face, arms, legs, garments).
I loved this day. It was one of my favorite!
Trying to create some sort of abstraction to give space to the imagination and to create a garment out of this process was a great experience.
0 6 / 1 0 / 2 0 1 4
F a s h i o n a n d t e x t i l e ( p a r t I )
Today we started with a very interesting exercise, we had some objects with sculptural shapes like glasses, rings, boxes...
And we had to link them together with thread.
It was a kind of introduction to fashion, which consistes in joining pieces of fabric together in order to have a beautiful sculptural garment.
It was a team work and our group was given plastic glasses. To be efficient each of us worked on a glass (but we informed each other of our ideas before so that everyone agreed) and we joined them all at the end. We thought that our "sculpture" looked like Brancusi's famous Infinite column.
Brancusi Infinit Column 1938
We thought for aesthetic reasons that we should attach it to the celling.
Our column was then is suspension.
This little exercise was good because like so many others before it was spontaneous.
I feel that within this instantaneity, this spontaneousness our work gained a certain abstraction and that this abstraction left a lot of space to our imagination.
That is a creative process that I have enjoyed throughout out all the project we mad so far.
We then had to draw our new object using different techniques.
We used continuous line, blind drawing (my to favorite) and other techniques such as using out two hands, limited time, switching mediums...
Then, when we had build a base, a sort of preparative work we where given acetate paper and asked to create a print out of it that will then be projected on to a wall.
I decided to work with a variety of thread, tape, and paper to give my fabric some texture.
I enjoyed the whole process of the creation.
0 3 / 1 0 / 2 0 1 4
H o r s t
Today I went to the V&A to see the Horst exhibition.
I was intrigued by this photographer because he started with studied in Architecture and ended being a Photographer.
0 2 / 1 0 / 2 0 1 4
G r a p h i c d e s i g n ( p a r t I I I )
Today we did prints.
I enjoyed playing with the shapes and textures of the letters.
I loved the idea of taking a letter as a shape without any meaning, only as a sorte of architectural, visual object.
We weren't given a full alphabet to create our prints. During the lecture I loved the utilization of the letter E. But there wash't any E avoidable.
I chose to work exclusively with the letter T.
I love the simplicity of this letter, it has an incredibly harmonious shape and it is a shape that you can find in a lot of architectural design and I thought that it could be interesting to explore that.
I enjoyed playing with the possibilities that this letter offered.
But I realized that what I didn't like in Graphic Design is the fact that we work to much for a visual aesthetic and not enough on meaning like we do in Fine Arts.
I don't think that Graphic design would be fulfilling for me.
I wait with impatience the next week: Fashion.
I don't know anymore if I want to do Fashion although I though I did for the last 8 years...
I did 4 internships during the last 5 years and it was a great experience for me I feel that it made me more conscious about this work.
I have always loved theses experiences. And all of them comforted me in my choice.
Despite of that I'm having a big moment of doubt and I hope that the coming week will help me with my decisions.
2 9 / 0 9 / 2 0 1 4
G r a p h i c d e s i g n ( p a r t I I )
Today we were asked to produce an alphabet out of A6 paper.
I enjoyed making this alphabet.
It seems like a simple thing to do but it is actually very complexe to create every letters because of different elements like the curves, the obliques...
So it was challenging to create harmonious letters.
We needed to create a language, a way to represent them that looked coherent (size, way of cutting, folding...).
We needed to be very resourceful and efficient because everything went very fast as usual.
I found the style of letters I wanted to develop right away. I inspired from Pop Up, creating a 3 D cube and cutting, folding and turning it in different angles to make the letters appear.
The teacher said that she liked how this system used negative spaces, folding and cutting.
We were then asked to find a contexte for theses letters and a word that would express theses letters's ''personality''.
I chose the word ANALOGY because of their very simple and commun chape (a cube).
So they can be assimilated with a lot of objects, it's up to the spectator's mind to decide with witch object he or she associate it with.
I followed my teacher's advice and I photographed this word in a very simple place to balance with the complexity of the letters.
I found a place were there was two holes in a shape of a square.
Holes are negative spaces and I found it very coherent with my letters.
In plus the holes were at the bottom (so at the junction between the wall and the floor) of a wall so it looked a lot like the folding of my letters.
I enjoyed today, I found it very enriching.
Although it was a good experience I don't feel that it was the best day I had since we started.
2 9 / 0 9 / 2 0 1 4
G r a p h i c d e s i g n ( p a r t I )
Today was the first day of graphic design, it started with a group project. We had to come up very quickly with three ideas about a certian number of words and using particular materials. Then we had to confront our ideas and chose one that we would realise within the day.
We chose the words Pycological and Body.
One of the girl of our group had the idea to paint herself woth white paint and to do a performence
were she would paint herself black. That could be a metaphore for a lot of things because already the color white and black have a very well knonw opposed meaning (purety and corruption).
I wasn't sure I liked the idea because I thought it was to simple, not original enought. But it was a one day project and we couldn't loose anytime. In plus this project was quite ambitious because we needed to buy the paint, to create a setting, to make sure everything went well for our performer who was going to aplly paint on here face and body, then we needed to film it, edit it and clean up!
I was the persone who filmed and editing. I realy enjoyed it. This project reveled itself to be very amusing and the aethetic was very good. I like the final outcome alot and the teachers seemed to liked to because of it simplicity and aesthetic because, as they explained, in graphic design and communication simplicity is an accet.
That was a very interesting day and I'm very happy with the fact that we maneged to finish our project intime.
This realy made me want to work more with videos. It is a medium that I don't know that well for now but it is the second one I have one within those two weeks of diagnistic course and I enjoyed it alot.
I have a friend how is a ballet dancer at the National Accademy and I would like to do a project with her.
2 8 / 0 9 / 2 0 1 4
E x h i b i t i o n R e v i e w ( p a r t I I I )
Today I started to write my exhibition review.
I started with a brainstorm, using all the notes and pictures I too at the muneum.
I came up with words like:
Texte, signs, univeral language, colors, attention, objects, material ideas, immaterials, everyday's life ojects transformed and given a new and different meaning, Marcel Duchamp Realymade Rectifié, indentity, union, multiplicity, plural, crowd, object, manipulation, Hausman, architecture of control, politics, sick, heel, Joseph Beuys, staged...
Then, I made a list of what was expected from us in the review and I tryed to see in what category my ideas could go. Ater that I made a plan. I decided to devide my review in parts:
An introduction, where I tryed to put a contexte (the place where it was exhibited), the athmosphere (to give a quick idea to the reader of the feeling of the exhibiton) and little prase to try to catch the reader's attention.
Then I started with the curration so that the reader can have the setting in his mind right at the begining.
After that I tryed to talk in a pretty general way about the artist's process and intentions (I'm afraid it is a little bit to short but I didn't realy know how to talk about it in a better way because there was so many artistes and they were so different that I didn't know how to make it fit in 5000 words).
Then I wrote about the audience's experience and in this exhibition it is a crutial element.
And I ended with a breif concusion.
When all thoses parts were writtend I tried to find titles for each block.
Inorder to do that I got inspiration from other magazines but my favefourite one is from far Citizen K.
Since my review was about politicaly active artists I oriented my titles on war vocabulary to illustrate that it was a war.
I realy wanted to put some of these words:
Heroes, Enlist, Power, Counterpower, Fight...
Im plus I thought that it could be something that connoted energy, dynamism and intencity , so that could be a good thing that would encourage the reader to read the review.
I waned to present my review like if it was from a magazine. I like editing textes a lot so I did it for my own contentment.
Again I loked at magazines to get some inspiration. I decided to go for someting simple as I know that it needed to be visualy efficient and very easy to read.
The last thing I needed was an illustration for this texte, `i decided to use a picture and to trore it in the center inorder that we could see the forloing page page.
I thought that it was coherent with the war vocabulary and the athmosphere of the exhibition, someting that implied movement, gesture, a little bit of violence (cutting and taring connote that).
I will still have to correct the spelling mistakes, and I will to it tomorow.
2 6 / 0 9 / 2 0 1 4
L i b r a r y and e x h i b i t i o n r e v i e w
( p a r t I I )
Today I went to CSM's library to research politicaly active art.
Desobedient Object is an exhibition multicultural, there are voices from China, Mexico, Arabie...
So the range of resarch was wide.
I looked at a certain amount of books but the ones that interested me the most were the posters of propaganda during different revolutions but mainly USSR and China.
It is a very interesting meduium of communucation and it's facinating to try and analyze all the messages vehiculated in those posters.
There is a question that I asked myself while doing this reaserch:
Are propaganda posters art?
Because if we think about it, it also ask people questions, it uses colors, shapes, lights, copositions... to send a message, they are quite ethetic...
That made me remember the famous entreprise of Joseph Beuys : Get art out of the museums.
He even made a piece, a happening were he and a student collected all the litter after a protest and he exposed it in a museum.
Je took someting that was just litter and put it in a museum and it became art.
This piece questions marcks, traces, time, object...
But it hightlight the fact that in the exhibition Desobedient Objects the curation plays an important part. Maybe the curration itself is a piece of the exhibition?
2 5 / 0 9 / 2 0 1 4
F i n e a r t s ( p a r t I I I )
Today we came in the class with our offering to the Martians.
I made glasses which enable Martians to see throught what I think is unique to Humans:
But when we arrived with our project, we were asked to currate the two rooms we were in and to create a way to dispose and arrange our work.
Inorder to do that we had to talk woth or groupe so that we could arrange the earea tehem by them, si that we made the space a confortable space to navigate in...
That was a realy enjoyable process.
Then the Martians arrived... and everyone was given postits and pens and were asked to critisise everyone's work.
I was realy happy to have this process repetead.
I was even happier when I came back from my visit to see 14 postits of comments and a few questions.
Here are the comments and questions:
Realy sophisticated. It touches also the question of ideologie.
Representing how we see things? I like the compostion and illustrations are beautiful and detailed
Lovely maden, twist and traditional, stained glass windows
The simplicity and the contrast is realy beautiful
Smart idea
It's interesting to see now our world and views on religion, ect get filter by today's modern world
Beautiful! Is it suposed to adress the "rose coloured glasses syndrome"?
Realy unusual and smart idea
The informal setting works well, althought I think it could go further
Amazing shadowsBeautiful simplicity + Shadows work so nicely
I realy like this piece. I love the contraste between modern thechnonolgy and the projection of stained glass windows, I love the simplicity of the set up
The holly picture often come in vibrant colors is there a reason you made them monochromaticaly?
I had awsered to the questions on my information file HERE ,
and the fact that people seem to have understood many of the aspect of my piece and that they liked it made me want to go further with that project.
I think that I will do more of them as a collection, a serie.
2 3 / 0 9 / 2 0 1 4
F i n e a r t s ( P a r t II)
Today's subect was Behaviour.
Again we tried to understand what diffines us as humans and differenciates us form animals or machines.
We were introduced to thoses question throught some art pieces.
Maurizio Cattelan is the author of the piece Bidibidobidiboo (1996). In this sculpture, we can see something that could insite the spectator to laught when infact it is a trajic piece.
A squirrel committed suicide. The point of Cattelan is to make the spectaor realise that seeing an animal killing himself is ridiculous. Why? Because only human do it.
That act is then owned by humans.
We were then asked to start thinking of an object that we should be able to create anf finish by the end of the day that would question certain aspects of human beheviour.
During the lecture we were showed a piece by Serrie Levine that was inspiered from Marcel Duchamp's revolutionary ready made : Fountain (1917).
When the teachers were explaining Levine's intentions I noticed that the shape of this urinoir looked like the silouhete of the Vergin Marie with here veil.
I also thought of Boudah but because of the white color and the meaning atached to it I prefered to take the Virgin as the analogical shape.
We needed to talk about behaviour, to interogate that.
I couldn't think of a more human behaviour than Beleif.
It seemed like this one aspect that could be unique to humans.
Religion, Beleif, Meaning invades everything. It's how the human brain foncitions.
The urinoir is white, this color has a very particular meaning it's the color of perfect purety.
I thought that it was interesting because it was a commun color to both antities but at the same time there was a big contrast between:
|Reverse of purety
|Utilitary ?
2 2 / 0 9 / 2 0 1 4
F i n e A r t s (part I)
The lecture
Today was the first day of the Fine Arts diagnistic week.
It started with a lecture intitled Beeing Human and Human Beeing.
The lecture's aim was to rise questions about art, the position of the artiste, the position of the spectator...
But before all thoses questions were raised, I questioned the titled of this lecture: Beeing Human and Human Beeing.
This lecture was going to be orianted in a way that we were going to talk about Art as the production of Human as it is a part of him.
In effect art would appear to be an activity proper to Human beeings.
Then as the producers of this very particular from of expression, of communication, we were asked to step out of our selves and to take a step back in order to try to reach some sort of objectivive vue on our creation.
This task that will be repetitive thought out this week is at the same time chalenging and exiting as we are asked to annalyse the outside world but also to do a self-introspection an to annalyze it too.
To have an exemple of what our observations could be based upon we were told to find out more about anthopologie.
It was interesting to realise that this science and art had some commun questions, for exemple objects:
-> Object -> Contexte
-> Object -> Meaning
-> Object -> Action/Interaction
Then we were asked to totaly step out of our selves, of our status of human beeings and to try to forget about our usual reflexes of sticking right away meaning to things from what we already know.
From that original and new point of view we were asked to try to retranscribe what we were trying communicate (in a clear and efficient maner) and what we wanted to express.
In order to make this task even more challenging we were asked to bring an object wich purpouse was hard to define if it is isolated from it's comtexte.
I didn't brought one with me so I was given one (this added randomness in the project witch in art is an interesting thing to question as we can see with some artists such as Michel Blazi) avery light object made out of white plastic. It looked like one of those little things that presents in a box some objects in an organise and simple way. My description here is very vage because I still don't kmow what this little object was supose to display.
I gess that this added some mistery to it, a repetitive question: What did this object used to diplay?
Our human mind tries to find a shape, an object that would fit in this little empty spaces but it fails. All we can do is try to fill this little empty shapes with our imagination.
Then the drawing description begins, I tryed to explore different ways to represent this object's feeling, ot's weight, it's texture, how it reacted to light, to noise...
I first draw the object in a very technical way in order to understand and to realy see (because there is no better way to see then to draw) all the lines, the plains, the emptiness, the light and the shadow of the object.
Then I tryed to draw only the shadows with some charcoal,
Then I used a chalk to try to retranscrobe the texture and the feeling of this object (the light quality of this material matched the lighness of the object.
Then I took some transparent tape an covered a little area with it and draw with a marker very fast the contours (I thought that it could retranscribed the perfect smothness of this container).
Using again the tape I made a little model of the object (it's volume was an interseting element to add to this little study).
I then draw the object with a white pe on a white paper to show the feeling of aspaciality, of emptiness that one could feel confonted to this object.
And finaly I used the process of cutting (that I had sutdied last week for the previous projet). Cutting was probably the most pertinent way to represent this object and I was please to hear my teacher encouraging me to go further with this process.
I then took the peices of paper I had jsut cutted out and cutted them again so that I made little models of this negative spaces.
Words also were a way to describe. They were as abstract as the object.
Then we were asked to exchange our drawings and oject with someone else and try to creat a lable for it (like in the museums) that would provide the object with a meaning. I got an electic plug protecion. The light was very bright on our table because it was close to 12:00 and the sun was right intop of us, when I puted the object on the table I imideatly noticed that it's shadow was an very interesting element.
It's shape was similar to some buldings, I could relate this chape to architecture.
I combined those two elements and came out with:
I noticed that the shadow in a certain angle looked like a Christian cross and it reminded me of The Church of light by Ando Tadao. The artist used light to crate a cross in the chruch and I wanted to use light aswell to make a cross apear.
I used light as a material witch brought me back to the previous week were I had to dig in this very interesting material.
See information file
Clic here
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M u s e u m a n d e x h i b i t i o n r e v i e w
( p a r t 1 )
Today I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum in perspective of the Exhibition Review task.
Before I chose were I wanted to go I did a few researches on the internet (official websites, forums, articles, pictures...) to check out what were the themes and the style of all the choices we had.
Desobedient Objects (at the V&A) caught my attention beacause I thought that it must be interesting to see such a modern and untraditional exhibition in an instituation famous for it's conventionalisme.
This contraste attracted me.
In plus, during the last summer holidays I went to New York and I saw the exhibition of Ai Wei Wei at the Brookline Museum. I thought that going to an other political exhibition was a good way to deepen my knowleg within this subject.
I was very surprised by how the exhibition was aranged. I was expecting something more tidy but it was an (thoughfully aranged) chaos.
That fact made me quite enthousiaste and I knew right away that I wanted to do my exhibition review about this exhibition.
I navigated in the exhibition and tryed to think first with a genral view, a few words and ideas came to my ming and I wrote them down on my sketchbook:
-The imortance of the plurel
-The multiplicity
-"Uninon makes the strenght"
-Strong link woth spech and signes and symbols
-Colourful which catched the spectator's attention
I thought about an exhibition I went to see last year in Paris called The surrealism and the objects and I thought that I could link that exhibition to Desobedient objects because they both use objects to anchor ideas (immaterial) in the reality throught objects (material).
For the surrealistes it was a major element because they ideas were "sur" "real" so they needed to find a way, a medium to conjuguate those two things and here I think that this technic also applies here because the artists tends to vehiculate quite abstract ideas like Utopia (a word which's meaning has never occured in real life, it's only an idea), so they need to find tangible elements to communicate in a more eloquant way theire messages.
Then I visited the exhibition a second time and this time I spent more time on every pieces. I didn't realy tried to annalyse every single object one by one because I beleive that there's a part of the exhibition that can only be understand when the spectator has an overveiw of the exhibition.
But this time I noticed other things:
-There were some pieces that requiered the spectator's action, the pieces were interactive. Maybe it was a way to make the public actif to (politicaly) throught theire contribution and trhought that join (in a metaphorical way) the action.
-The disposition made the public circulate in a very thourougly thought way: it is like in Paris Hausman created bouleveards so that the government could control the mouvements of the crowd durring protestes. Here there is also a manipulation of the movements of the public in the space of the exhibition.
-This exhibition, although it is based on union, plurel and mutiplicity, it also hightlights that it's in a first place individual acts that changes the situations as we can see t=with the number of pieces whitch shows only one indivudual, or that makes us listen to one voice...
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I d e a F a c t o r y ( p a r t I I )
Today we had to bring a model, picture or sketch of the idea we came up with Tusday.
This representation needed to be clear and visualy eloquent so that others could understand our ideas.
I realised a model.
Then we were all given postits and asked to comment on the other's work in a constructive way to help them to improve (critics, questions, good points, bad points...).
I realy enjoyed this moment, it was realy nice to see genuine seriousness that people put in those comments.
This process based on having a wide and exterior to our work audience who helps us improve with theire genuine thoughts is a real pleasure to experiment.
It's bassed on mutual help.
I hope that this way of improving our work will occure later in the course too because I truly believe that it can lead to a great improvemenent of our work.
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I d e a F a c t o r y ( p a r t I )
Today we started with a chalenging exercise: we had to come up with 30 ideas within 30 mintues.
We had to bear in mind our material (light), our process (cutting) and our performer (Es Devlin).
After the library reasech task I had an idea of how I wanted to use these three elements. Light was interesting to be used as what it inevertably implies: Shadows. Shadows were the cutting of light so the process was there and it had to be with a performence, something with a stage to be in accordence with Es Devlin.
Within 30 minutes I managed to come up with 15 ideas. I did little quick sketches and a few words for each idea, maybe I should of taken only one of those two way of communication to lay down my ideas on paper inorder to gain time.
Then we had to select what we thought were our 3 best ideas and represent them on our skechbooks so that it would be as clear and understandable as we could make it.
After that we had to do a little expose of our three ideas to our group and they decided which one was the most interesting and it would be the one that we would developpe for Thursday.
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T h e l i b r a r y (Part II)
Today I was able to use the gigantic resources of the UAL libraries. The exiercice's aim was to sharpen our reaserch skills.I decided to devide my research in three parts:Texte, Images and Ideas.
Before I punged into this gigantic wealth of information I tried to think about what Ialready knewabout thoses subjects; what knowleges I already had that I could link to those three elements.
Freud and it's reflection about psycology was the first thing I thought about.
His consept of putting in light what was in the shadow in our consious seemed to me like anintersesting and relevent idea that I needed to go deeper into.
Using the very practical search motor of the school's library I found a phylosophical book entiteled Atomic Lights by Akira Mizua. This japanese author evoqued Freud's consept of "the archelologie of secrets" but this texte lead me onto a different path.
This book was a reflexion based upon the paadox that light wasn't only a material thatunabled visibility, for Mizuta, light was also (and mainly) what it inevitably implided : shadows.
That observation set in motion a real evolution in my reaserch:
I realised that shadows could be considered as the "cutting of the light".
A more in depth research was made possible by the vastness of the UAL library.
I started with a philosophical book that treated the subject of light
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T h e M u s e u m s
1 0 / 0 9 / 2 0 1 4
T h e R e f l e x i o n


text:
December 14, 2011
Homebuying Step by Step "CMHC's Homebuying Step by Step guide is here to make things easier for you by providing the information you need to make a wise homebuying decision. This section provides examples and worksheets that will guide you …
December 13, 2011
Limited time offer! Apply within the next 4 months and a donation on your behalf will be sent to a military trust fund of your choosing!


text:
Our happiness in life does not depend entirely on having an intimate relationship, but it's definitely enhanced by having bonds which are both healthy and close.
Our happiness in life does not depend entirely on having an intimate relationship, but it's definitely enhanced by having bonds which are both healthy and close. If it looks as though yours are not working as well as you would like them to, it is possible that with some minor adjustments you might get things back on track.
Research in the area of relationships and well-being is among the fastest-growing fields in psychology. It's even known that close relationships matter for health, according to Paula Pietromonaco's (University of Massachusetts ) recent publication (2013) with Bert Uchino and Christine Dunkel-Schetter. With the benefit of several long-term studies which have followed successful and unsuccessful couples over time, researchers now know about some of the most common mistakes people make in relationships. By catching problems early enough, though, you can overcome those challenges before they take on insurmountable proportions.
So, here are nine common relationship mistakes:
1) Constantly questioning your relationship.
Do you often sit around wondering whether you and your partner are going to still be together tomorrow, next month, or next year? Do you fear to jinx your relationship by doing or merely thinking the wrong thing? Do you search for signs of preoccupation expressed by your significant other as evidence of their disinterest in you? Well, constantly questioning your relationship means that you're insecure and you doubt it will last. Therefore, it might be less likely to feel comfortable about any commitment you make about the future. If you are always looking for a "Plan B," then your partner might sense it, and the relationship's future demise may then become a likely prospect.
2) Taking your significant other for granted to an unhealthy extent.
As relationships mature, there is a tendency to assume that it is fine to let the typical niceties of life slip and slide. Some of that is normal, appropriate, and even relationship-building. Nevertheless, from time to time it does not hurt to reflect on what our life would be like without our partner. What would this mean for our everyday existence, our overall well-being, and our thoughts about our future happiness? Once we begin to formulate a picture of ourselves without our partner, this image may help us take the extra step to show our partner affection, interest, and concern. It's too easy to dismiss the people we're closest to because we expect them to be there no matter what. By doing so, they might very well seek out people who will give them the attention they're not getting from us.
3) Taking your partner too little for granted.
It isn't a good idea to ignore your partner, but it's neither productive for the relationship if you're constantly worrying about whether they really care about you. People who are anxiously attached to their partner become so clingy and dependent that they can drive the other person away through their excessive need for reassurance and affection. After you and your partner have established your commitment to one another, it should not be necessary for you to keep on questioning and wondering whether your partner sincerely cares. Even if you have not reached the serious commitment stage, you need to be able to tell from "behavioral" data whether they care about you. Such data can include remembering to call or text you, being courteous, doing you favors, and being kind to the people you love. If you don't see these signs, there might very well be others certain to your relationship that, if you notice carefully, show how much your partner does care for you, which in turn could help you become less anxious about your relationship.
4) Letting the boundaries slip around your relationship.
In an intimate relationship of any kind, there are bound to be secrets. Letting other people into your private world, even if it seems perfectly harmless, might erode your partner's feelings of trust in you. If your partner finds out, they will feel betrayed or even humiliated. For instance, let's suppose you tell a relative that your partner does not care for his boss. Now let's say that it's unlikely that your relative and your partner's boss ever meet. But there is always a random chance. Also, what if your relative forgets that this is a secret and mentions it in front of your partner in conversation? It will be obvious that you were the source of information. Your partner might never even find out that you have been tattling, but the fact that you have done so might put your relationship in jeopardy nevertheless. You may begin to worry about having opened your mouth and over time begin to feel guilty and anxious, emotions that may become troubling and problematic.
5) Complaining about your partner to everybody except your partner.
We all can imagine ways to change the behaviors of our long-term partners. Instead of letting your partner know, however, you may mistakenly share your unhappiness with anybody who will listen. Apart from leaking secrets in the relationships, such tendencies may become counter-productive on their own. Most apparently, by not telling your partner directly what is bothering you, it is unlikely that they would know that you'd like to see them changing some things about their behavior. Less obvious is that by constantly focusing on what is bothering you, it'll be more difficult for you to see the good things in your partner. These negative ideas about minor annoyances might gather momentum over time, and before long, prevent you from seeing their other admirable and endearing qualities.
6) Turning on the passive-aggressive switch.
There are numerous ways to be passive-aggressive in a relationship. Everything from avoiding to do something you'd rather not, to agreeing with a suggestion you never follow…the list is endless. Perhaps you think it is safer not to object outwardly to a request and disagree with something your partner says but by not letting your partner know how you feel, you are closing off a route of communication. Of course, not all passive-aggressive behaviors are conscious. Your forgetting or avoiding to do your partner a favor, like setting the alarm clock in time for an early morning appointment, might be because you would rather sleep in than having to wake up early. Nevertheless, it might mean that you are upset over the reason your significant other has to get up so early, whether it is to catch an early airplane or to go take the ex's kids to daycare. If you are engaging in behaviors like this, and it isn't typical of you (i.e. you are usually very organized), you may take some time to reflect on what is bothering you and discuss it honestly with your partner.
7) Giving up on your partner.
Everybody goes through challenges, whether it is losing a job, suffering from health issues, or dealing with an addiction. It's at those hard times that your partner needs your support, but it is also at those times when you might be feeling the most worried. Without having to cover up your concern with a Pollyanna-ish optimism, it's more significant than ever at those challenging times that you hang in there and let your partner feel that they'll come out of this trying time. Your support not only can help ease your partner's pain but might be just what is needed to help your significant other summon up the resources to overcome their challenge.
8) Feeling hopeless.
Apart from any personal challenges that your partner might be confronting, couples also deal with their own sets of difficulties. The possible reasons to feel hopeless can vary from somebody's infidelity, differences in personalities, lifestyle, and values, or mere misunderstandings which mushroom into out-and-out warfare. If you let yourself give up on the situation, you will be far less likely to put your emotional investment into the steps you will need to follow for relationship repair. Many people develop hopelessness toward their relationships through a set of cognitive distortions, like believing what is bad now will always be bad, life "should" be worry-free, and minor disagreements reflect basic underlying flaws in α couple's prospects for true intimacy.
9) Not taking your partner seriously enough
Every time you think about the important people and aspects of your life, what rank would you give your partner? Who comes first? Your children, parents, or friends? How about your work colleagues or your job in general? It might be very logical and understandable to put your kids first, for instance, because depending on their age and phase in life, they need you. Also, there are different qualities to your romantic relationship compared to your relationship with children or other family members. In reality, there is no need to decide who is more important. But by playing this thought experiment, you can gain insight into where your significant other fits into your overall life goals. If there is a huge mental gap between your children, job, friends, or other people and involvements, it is likely that your partner experiences this undervaluing. Once again, looking toward these behavioral signs, if you are at a social gathering, see whether you drop your partner in favor of other people, leaving at the end of the evening without even having exchanged more than a word or two. Your partner may not admit feeling snubbed, but this lack of attentiveness can be experienced as rejection.


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BoI investor Ross toasts Ireland for 'biting bullet'
US billionaire financier Wilbur Ross, who is taking a stake of more than 9pc in BoI, yesterday toasted the Government's latest success in attracting private money in the "re-privatisation of the bank" on US TV network CNBC.
"I think the Irish Government deserves it," he told the TV station. "They really bit the bullet. They cut the total cost of the civil service by 13pc . . . they also refused to put up the corporate tax rate," he said.
"They really are fixing the economy, unlike what I call the Club Med countries, who are not reforming anything."
BoI's successful recapitalisation drove shares up 8pc yesterday, but analysts warned of a "clear risk" to the share price once bondholders are free to sell their stock on August 12.
Some 84 million BoI shares changed hands on the Dublin exchange yesterday, about 40 times average volumes earlier in the year, as markets digested the news that the State's ownership in the bank would fall from 36pc to just 15pc.
Analysts en masse welcomed the result of BoI's €5.2bn recapitalisation which saw the bank secure just over €1bn from a quintet of buyers including Mr Ross, Canadian insurer Fairfax and US investor Fidelity.
But Goodbody warned it still believed the bank's "fair value" was 8.4c a share, against the 10c price paid by new investors and the 11c shares were trading for yesterday. Other analysts speculated the share price was likely to dip on August 12 when bondholders will be able to sell off the 19pc of the company they got in a debt buyback.
"We see this as a clear risk to share price performance in the short term," NCB's banking analyst Karl Goggin wrote in a note to clients.
Irish Independent


text:
Working on a pirate and hoping to get some feedback and suggestions.
The pirate is coming along i need to do some clean up on the strips on his pants.
I may need to do some more blending on dark greens to lighter greens on his skin. It looks okay to the naked eye but if i use a flash it looks kind of weird in the photos. Also not happy yet with my attempt at NMM for the sword.
But what I'm really stuck on is the ship! I wanted to make it look like he was on the deck of a ship without building the entire ship. Here's what I have so far.
Should I try to show the side of the ship as well as the deck? If i do, I was thinking about adding the shroud lines, but just have them rising up into the air without reaching a mast. Does that seem weird? Any thoughts about how to do the bow and stern of the ship, if it's just supposed to be part of the deck?
without the gunnel
with the gunnel
Views of the pirate
trying to make his flask look like it is partly empty.
This is one idea of how I was trying to follow
thanks for reading this far and for any suggestions you may have!


text:
ScottishPower are looking to sponsor highly motivated students who have a desire to work in the power industry and:
- Have an Honours Degree or Master's Degree. If you are in your final year of your degree the grant is contingent upon completion of the degree within the academic year
Further information:
- Applicants must be in possession of a bachelor with honours or master's degree from a recognised university on submission of the application. If the applicant is still in the final year of the academic course 2018-2019, the grant will be contingent upon whether the applicant secures the university degree at the end of the academic cycle in June/July 2019 with the same average grades or greater than the predicted grades at the time of the call for applications.
- Applicants must follow the usual procedure for enrolling at the UK University they wish to attend.
- Applications submitted by students who have not applied for enrolment at the UK University will be rejected during the selection process.
- Applicants may not receive any remuneration or wages or be in receipt of any scholarship, financial aid or other award of a similar nature from institutions and public or private foundations during the period that the scholarship is awarded for.
- Applications presented by candidates with a grade average during the pursuit of the degree lower than "upper second class honours" for universities in the UK will be rejected.
- Candidates who have previously been awarded a ScottishPower or its Foundation scholarship are excluded from assessment.


text:
Mets pour it on late, close gap in NL East
WASHINGTON -- The Mets showed on Tuesday night that it's going to be a race in the National League East. Eric Campbell's pinch-hit two-run single in the seventh inning proved to be the difference as the Mets defeated the Nats, 7-2, at Nationals Park, cutting Washington's lead in the division to two games.
"A great feeling," Campbell said. "It's a big hit. Obviously, we needed to score more runs and get more guys in scoring position, and we did that today."
Nationals right-hander Joe Ross was cruising with a one-run lead until the seventh inning, when Wilmer Flores led off with a single. Kirk Nieuwenhuis followed with a hard ground ball that went past first baseman Clint Robinson for a two-base error, putting runners on second and third with nobody out.
After Kevin Plawecki popped up to second baseman Danny Espinosa, Nationals manager Matt Williams took Ross out of the game in favor of Aaron Barrett. Campbell entered to hit for right-hander Jacob deGrom and singled to right field, scoring Flores and Nieuwenhuis for the lead.
The Mets would score four runs in the ninth inning off reliever Tanner Roark. Curtis Granderson highlighted the scoring with an RBI single.
deGrom ended up with his 10th victory of the season. He was in the zone for most of the game, retiring nine of the first 10 hitters he faced. His only blemish occurred in the fifth inning, when Wilson Ramos hit a two-run homer.
Soup delivers: After Robinson committed a fielding error on a seventh-inning ground ball headed toward foul territory, the Mets pinch-hit Campbell for deGrom with two men in scoring position and one out. The Nats countered with Barrett, who watched as Campbell's opposite-field two-run single dropped over a drawn-in infield to give the Mets a one-run lead. More >
One blemish: Ramos' two-run homer in the fifth inning was just the third long ball deGrom allowed in an 81-inning stretch up to that point. But it was significant, giving the Nats their first lead. deGrom gave up just two other hits, striking out eight and walking one.
Ross pitches in tough luck: In his first Major League start since June 19, Ross pitched well enough to win, but he didn't have great defense to back him up. Ramos' double-clutch throw in the fourth inning allowed Granderson to steal second and score the first run of the game.
Video: NYM@WSH: Ross holds Mets to three runs over 6 1/3
"It was a hit-and-run, and [Ramos] just couldn't get it out of his glove," Williams said. "He almost got him with the double clutch. He wasn't able to get him."
• Nationals fielders have night to forget
Robinson's error in the seventh allowed the Mets to score two runs.
Ross was not frustrated by the defensive lapses.
"I've seen more great plays out there," Ross said. "Whatever happens, happens. I just have to try to pitch out of the situation that I'm in." More >
The 97-mph fastball that Bobby Parnell used to strike out Dan Uggla in the eighth inning was his fastest pitch since September 2013, according to PITCHf/x data. Parnell's career high is 103 mph, last achieved in 2011. More >
Video: NYM@WSH: Parnell gets Uggla looking to end the frameQUOTABLE
"I would say I was a little amped up tonight to get out there. Just knowing that they're in first [place] and that's who we're chasing right now." -- deGrom
Video: NYM@WSH: deGrom fans eight, holds Nats to two runs
Mets: When the Mets lined up their post-All-Star-break rotation to pit their best pitchers against the Nationals, they made certain that Noah Syndergaard would be among them. The rookie, who will start the 12:35 p.m. ET series finale at Nationals Park on Wednesday, is 2-1 with a 1.55 ERA over his last four starts.
Nationals: The Nats have an early game against the Mets on Wednesday, at 12:35 p.m. ET. Right-hander Jordan Zimmermann will get the start. In his previous outing, against the Dodgers on Friday, Zimmermann was limited to four innings because the game was delayed three times -- and ultimately suspended -- because of a faulty circuit breaker.
Watch every out-of-market regular season game live on MLB.TV.