So I’m on the subway, minding my own business, zoning out completely with my headphones in, playing a game on my brand-spakin’ new iPad that I love so very much… when this old lady sits up next to me and starts ogling my screen.
Now I don’t mind people sneaking a peek. It’s pretty hard not to get distracted by someone playing a shiny, colorful game beside you. I’m guilty myself of looking over people’s shoulders when they’re playing something or watching a movie. Hell, what else are you going to occupy your time with on the subway?
In any case, the lady’s looking and decides that she needs to know more. She taps me on the shoulder, leans in and asks me, “What is that there?” Now I’m not an irritable person, but when I’ve got headphones in with my eyes trained at my game, I think it’s a pretty clear sign I’m not in the mood for small talk. But whatever. I politely pause the game, remove a headphone from my ear, and ask her to repeat herself.
“What is that you have there?”
“This? This is an iPad”
“Oh is it?”
Yes. Yes it is…
“I see,” she continues as I turn back to my game. “And what do you do with it?”
“Hmmm?” You’re kidding, right?
“I said what do you do with it? You check email or something?”
Ok. She didn’t seem totally dumbfounded when I told her it was an iPad, so she had clearly heard of them. How is it that you have no clue what it does?
“Yeah. You can check email and stuff.”
“Yeah? And what else?”
Exactly what you are keeping me from doing right now, that’s what! You’re killing me here, lady! I just wanna kill some damn zombies in peace already! *Sigh*
“Um… Well, you can pretty much do whatever you can do with a laptop.”
At this point the lady seemed to be getting a little peeved. Ugh, I’m the one trying to play a game here…
“I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what a laptop does. I didn’t ask about laptops, I asked about that. What does that do?”
Are you for real, lady? Am I on some kind of TV show right now? You can’t go anywhere else for a tech lesson? If you don’t know what a laptop does, how do you know about email?! How the hell do I answer that?!
After staring at her blankly for a few seconds, checking to be sure she actually wanted an answer, I did my best. “Well, you know, you can check email, type word documents…”
“Uh huh, uh huh.” She clearly wanted me to continue.
“You can use tools like a calendar, camera, calculator…” I tried to blurt a bunch of thinks out really quickly so she’d get the picture that “it can do a lot” and leave me alone.
“I’m sorry, what was that last thing you said after camera?”
*Facepalm* What are you taking notes? “Calculator.”
“Calculator, ah!”
I considered telling her about apps, but I knew that I’d just have to explain what that meant and I really had no intention of speaking to this lady any further. Besides, my stop was coming up soon.
Despite my intentions, this awkward back and forth continued with her asking about prices, functions, storage capacity (yes, she knew what a “gigabyte” was), and she even asked to hold it to see how heavy it was.
“Oh my! It’s very heavy!”
Yes. A whooping 1.3 pounds…
“And what’s that you’re doing there?”
“This? This is a game.” Astounding ain’t it?
“Ah. You can play games too.”
Ok. I’m over this lady. Get me off this train.
Luckily my stop came just then and I darted off, after she stopped me to ask again just how heavy it was.
The moral to all of this is… I dunno. Don’t sit next to old ladies on the subway? Politely move to another seat? I dunno. *Sigh*
Maybe I’ll have a more profound story to tell next time around…
Until then.
Just received the video from my staff spinning performance back in March.
Might I just say how much I despise watching myself perform. I see the video and all I see is error, error, error, sloppy, sloppy, *vomit*. However, I received a lot of compliments on my performance, so I figured there must be something redeemable in there.
After seeing it a few times, I attribute my disapproval with the knowledge of my actual choreography. I know exactly what I want myself to look like, but what I see in my head doesn’t match the video. So, naturally, the video looks awful to me.
However, I imagine it doesn’t look all that bad to you all. :P
I’ll let you be the judge. Here’s the video.
Romance Staff Act – Street Saint
Feel free to leave your comments in the box bellow. After all, I am my own worst critic, so anything you say can’t be as bad as what I already think! lol!
Tags: Performance, Staff, Video
This is just a quick reminder to parents, teachers, role-models, and basically anyone who might have some influence over a child (in other words, pretty much everyone): Never underestimate the power of your words/influence.
I recently made the realization that the only reason I’m not better at a lot of the skills I am learning now is because I lacked the confidence to try these skills before. It was not a matter of time spent, energy, interest, or anything else. I simply didn’t believe I was capable of doing (or I didn’t believe I was supposed to be doing) the things that I frankly loved to do.
Lack of Confidence Kills Dreams
I’m thinking in particular my movement skills. Just a few months ago, I probably wouldn’t have considered myself an acrobat because I didn’t feel I had the proper skills or training. After joining a community which encouraged me to be myself and explore the different types of movement I naturally felt comfortable with, I realized that I would be silly not to recognize my status as acrobat.
My immediate family used to joke about my dancing. They used to say that I was very stiff and didn’t have any type of knack for dance. This was when I was just a young, impressionable, and socially anxious kid. I played along with them to a certain extent, but did believe that I was not cut out for dancing. Fast-forward to today when my coaches say that I am a natural dancer. ”Are you sure this is your first dance class?” they’d ask.
Now, you’d be hard-pressed to get me to stop moving.
Be a Motivator, Not a Belittler
It just goes to show why instilling confidence in people (not just children) is so important. We can seriously kill other people’s potential and dreams by even joking about a lack of talent or skill. It’s the same effect we see with female body image issues, racial stereotyping, bullying, and a number of similar scenarios.
So if you catch yourself putting someone down, even playfully, be sure that the person knows how you really feel about them. If you’re joking around, let them know that you actually enjoy their work. And if you don’t, offer your criticism. This will better allow for the improvement and growth of the person. Condescension creates only dead ends.
I hope this made you think a little bit. Change yourself, change the world!
Until next time!
Tags: Children, Inspiration
Examiner article: Aerial theater at the Brooklyn Lyceum
It’s true, I’ve been away for a while… But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been up to stuff!
I’ve been doing a lot of training, and traveling, and stuff and it’s been great! The lack of updates has just been due to a lack of motivation. Go figure.
I simply realized that sending updates via Twitter is a whole lot easier than writing a whole blog post.
In any case, I just saw the show “Home” by the Moving Company at the Brooklyn Lyceum. It was a great little aerial theater show. You can read more about it at Examiner.
In any case, watching the show got me thinking… Thinking about what I might do if I produced a circus show. Naturally, it would be amazing, but taking an idea and turning it into a reality can be hard (not to mention expensive) work. Nevertheless, I’ve started writing down some ideas, and they’re looking pretty good. I guess this screenwriting education might come in handy after all!
That’s all for now. Going to try to keep these updates short. Be sure to check out the new Performance Art Examiner article, follow me on Twitter, stay tuned here for more updates, and keep being awesome!
Until next time!
Tags: Aerial Arts, Brooklyn Lyceum, Writing
Everyone has a very different opinion on marriage. Some people think it’s a waste of time, effort, and money. Other’s think it’s the most important thing to happen in one’s life. As a result, some people go just a bit overboard with their ceremonies.
Naturally, I don’t mean to say that it is wrong to pamper yourself on your wedding day. By all means, go crazy! But keep in mind that there are disgruntled bloggers out there keeping track of your receipts.
According to The Diamond Blog, the most expensive wedding dress ever made has “150 carats worth of diamonds laced throughout the dress.” The folks at the Diamond Blog encourage you all to consider buying the thing, despite its high price, which is listed as 12 million dollars.
TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS!!
That is not the price for a wedding dress. That is the amount a sadistic criminal asks for in return for the life of his 6 hostages. Is you wedding dress really worth the life of 6 innocent civilians?
How about, instead of spending your money on a dress that will mean something to only you, one day out of your life, consider one of your alternatives:
- Send as many as 75 students to a high-level private university for 4 years
- Pay the lifetime salaries of 10 average Americans
- Fund the low-budget CAUSE roadtrip 6,000 times!
- Feed a small American family for 100 generations
- Buy a home for as many as 20 wealthy American families
- Buy a home for as many as 50 middle-class American families
- Buy a home for over 1,000 lower-class American families
- Buy a clothing company and make your own damn dresses
If you spend that much on the dress, I can only imagine how expensive the actual ceremony will be. Not to mention the honeymoon!
This is just a little reminder to the rich people out there that, whether you like it or not, your reckless spending impacts us all. Please splurge responsibly.
Love you!
-Street Saint
Just saw this video posted on American Parkour. Tim “Livewire” Shieff demonstrates some of his sicknasty parkour skills, but also talks about what it means to do what traceurs do.
I think his words are very moving and speak to a collective understanding that traceurs have: It’s not about pulling off the most dangerous/impressive trick, it’s about re-imagining the environment around you.
Kudos to Mummu for producing the video.
Imagination is Everything
Tags: Parkour
Now before you get all excited, the decision is not yet official. However, it is true that Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster could be a new host for Saturday Night Live!
As you may or may not know, Cookie Monster is by far my favorite monster from Sesame Street, so hearing this news immediately caught my attention. If Cookie Monster were to host SNL, it would make me a very very happy camper. 
That being said, Cookie Monster still needs our help to make his hosting debut a reality! All you have to do is head to his Facebook Page and click on the “Like” button. Last time I checked, he has well over 100 thousand fans, so I think he has a good chance at this!
And to get a better idea of how well he would perform on SNL, check out Cookie Monster’s audition video bellow.
Don’t forget to visit Cookie Monster’s Facebook Page!
Tags: Puppetry, Sesame Street, SNL, TV
Hey! Check it out!
Performance artist “Miss Rosie” of Hero Hoops drove over 8,000 miles for 6 consecutive weeks to teach hooping at a number of different cities in the US. A total of 22 different cities! Pretty fantastic, eh?
I thought I would share this because it is very similar to the trip I will be taking this coming summer! If you haven’t yet heard about it, find out more about Street Saint’s CAUSE right here!
I won’t be doing anything cool like teaching hoop, but I’m going to be meeting a bunch of cool people who do! And do a lot of other things as well!
But enough about me. Here is Miss Rosie’s “Tour De Hoop” video:
See more about Miss Rosie on her YouTube page!
Tags: Hooping
Just saw this video of the Dunking Devils. They are an acrobatic dunking troupe based in the UK and they’re pretty sick! I would love the chance to see these guys live!
For more videos of the Dunking Devils, head to their YouTube page.
Tags: Acrobatics, Basketball
Do my eyes deceive me or is that dog tracing?
Apparently, the dog’s name is TreT and he’s an American staffordshire terrier from the Ukraine. I don’t know who taught him parkour, but dang is he good!
He even does a contact juggling stall at 2:48! The pup’s a wizard!
Tags: Animal Act, Parkour
