August 2014 ~ LA PENSINE MUTINE (EN)

Calyso is the name of Commander Cousteau's legendary vessel based on Greek mythology. Daughter of Atlas, the nymph Calypso is said to have detained Odysseus for seven years on her island. One thing for sure, our own oceanographer would have had some difficulty capturing anything other than jellyfish and a couple of dumb groupers even if he had offered them immortality!

Optimistic

Ey@el8/24/2014Song Lyrics No comments

Flies are buzzing around my head,
Vultures circling the dead,
Picking up every last crumb.
The big fish eat the little ones,
The big fish eat the little ones.
Not my problem give me some!

You can try the best you can,
If you try the best you can,
The best you can is good enough.

This one's optimistic.
This one went to market.
This one just came out of the swamp.
This one dropped a payload,
Fodder for the animals
Living on an animal farm.

If you try the best you can,
If you try the best you can,
The best you can is good enough.

'd really like to help you man,
I'd really like to help you man,
Nervous messed up marionette
Floating around on a prison ship.

If you try the best you can,
If you try the best you can,
The best you can is good enough.

If you try the best you can,
If you try the best you can,
Dinosaurs roaming the earth...

Thom Yorke, 2000

Pessimistic (Ey@el Mix)

I got neon spider toys in the attic,
Hanging on the tenuous thread of my thought,
Flashing through every nook and cranny.
Butterflies follow up caterpillars,
Butterflies follow up caterpillars.
No problem, gimme some wings!

You wanna get better,
You wanna get better,
So let it go.

This one's pessimistic.
This one's pulling us on.
This one's always spaced out.
This one's dropped his new-age,
Garbage for the suckers
Dwelling in the zoo,

If you wanna get better,
If you wanna get better,
Letting go is good enough.

I'd really like to help you man,
I'd really like to help you man,
Cool jack on the rampage
Yearning to ascend.

If you wanna get better,
If you wanna get better,
Letting go is good enough.

If you wanna get better,
If you wanna get better,
You gotta look the part...

How to Apply Pop Art Effects on Photos

Ey@el8/19/2014Photo Editing No comments

As Andy Warhol once said, “everyone will be famous for 15 minutes”. I discovered this very user-friendly technique while experimenting to create a unique and stylised user pic that would look like a Pop art painting. I know some of you are dying to try so here's how I made it. As always, you may use any image editing software running under Windows and supporting .8bf such as Paint Shop Pro (the one I used), Photoshop, PhotoFiltre, etc. If you want to use freeware, XnViewMP supports them and runs on every platform. The GIMP (Linux, Windows) may also run some .8bf filters via a plug-in you'll need to install first.

Materials

a colour or b/w picture providing good contrast
a collection of external free filters to install in the Plugins folder of your image editing software before lauching it — we'll use the one only:
US Comic

Instructions

1. Open a copy of the image you wish to manipulate.

2. Resize it if it's too large (most blogs and forums have a maximum size for user pix) and crop it to a square shape.

3. Apply Filter Factory - US Comic filter:

Even bias = 98
Odd bias = 148
Stripe size = 0
Darkness = 77
Gray <-> Color = 166
Red = 249
Green = 209
Blue = 151

4. To improve the result, I've decreased saturation and increased luminosity and contrast.

NOTE: You need to adapt the settings to your picture, but you must make sure to always keep the strip size value to 0 otherwise you'll get scanlines which is not what we want for this style of graphics. After processing, you may alter colours like I did with my own photo where I turned red to pink using the Color Replacer tool.

For the above picture, I've just changed the filter settings and left the saturation, luminosity and contrast untouched. I've erased the original text on the sheet of paper (painting it white) to rewrite it more clearly so that it would match the rest of the picture.

The possibilities are endless and the output is so cool I guess you'll have a lot of fun along the way!

The Original Sin

Ey@el8/15/2014Artwork, Beliefs No comments

Today is Assumption Day — that is the day Mary, mother of Jesus (not God as stated by Matt Bellamy¹ whose spirit appears neither holy nor sound) was granted access to heaven “free from the original sin”. Therefore it is only natural to honour the ancestor of all men wrongly accused of picking up the apple from the tree and banned without much fanfare while he was only trying to fix the shower head² to get a well-deserved wash after trout fishing³. The serpent did not cause his fall either. You might have heard that man came from monkeys. Well, that's because of the one which threw Adam an empty coconut shell. A short-sighted angel confused it with the forbidden fruit and reported the scene to the master of the place. God should really have invented eyeglasses first. Now it's time to reinstate the truth and refer to his laryngeal prominence as Adam's nutshell — not apple. “You might know of the original sin, you might know how to play with fire, but did you know of the murder committed in the name of love you thought what a pity”⁴.

Endnotes

An interviewer asked Matt Bellamy of Muse: “Who do you think is the coolest woman of all time?” And he replied: “Mary, mother of god. She got pregnant and convinced everyone she was still a virgin!”
A lame attempt to render the original pun in French where we don't say shower “head” but “apple”.
Same lame attempt as above: in French, we use the same word for “fishing” and “sinning”.
"The Original Sin", INXS (1983).

Luka

Ey@el8/09/2014Song Lyrics No comments

My name is Luka
I live on the second floor
I live upstairs from you
Yes, I think you've seen me before

If you hear something late at night
Some kind of trouble, some kind of fight
Just don't ask me what it was
Just don't ask me what it was
Just don't ask me what it was

I think it's 'cause I'm clumsy
I try not to talk too loud
Maybe it's because I'm crazy
I try not to act too proud

They only hit until you cry
After that you don't ask why
You just don't argue anymore
You just don't argue anymore
You just don't argue anymore

Yes, I think I'm okay
I walked into the door again
If you ask that's what I'll say
And it's not your business anyway

I guess I'd like to be alone
With nothing broken, nothing thrown
Just don't ask me how I am
Just don't ask me how I am
Just don't ask me how I am

My name is Luka
I live on the second floor
I live upstairs from you
Yes, I think you've seen me before

If you hear something late at night
Some kind of trouble, some kind of fight
Just don't ask me what it was
Just don't ask me what it was
Just don't ask me what it was

They only hit until you cry
After that you don't ask why
You just don't argue anymore
You just don't argue anymore
You just don't argue anymore

Original text by SUZANNE VEGA

Let's Go Green