Feeding the Brain.

In the past week, I've been catching up on entertainment that I've missed out on in the past two years while at school. I'll call it feeding the brain with interest that lay outside of advertising for now. It's important to have a vast set of interests to keep oneself interested and interesting. It's hard sometimes when you're engulfed in one discipline as intensely as Brandcenter kids are for 24 months. Anyways, I'll try to share what I'm doing to stay dynamic here and there and maybe even link it to brand where relevant (lucky, lucky you!).

Anyway... This past week I've feed my brain by watching the following:

The Great American Trailer Park Musical: An off-broadway theater production. A comedy for the sake of comedy. If you grew up watching Married with Children and The Simpsons and find Southpark and Family Guy funny, you'll enjoy this backwoods musical. It's funny if you like that "perpetuation of grossly exaggerated stereotypes for the sake of hilarity" kind of way. The program said it was about community and how we can find commonalities with the people we least expect. I think that it's a bit of a stretch to find seriousness in a play seemingly meant to be pure entertainment. Perhaps the beauty of the play is not found in the larger lesson, but that there really is no larger lesson to be learned.

The Wrestler: Darren Aronofsky, the producer who also did Requiem for a Dream, has some twisted artistic expressions that come from a place dark enough to ignite tears in anyone really paying attention. He's obviously coming from a dark place. I didn't expect to cry as much as I did but this movie was SAD. And, it made me wonder how anyone could support professional wrestling considering the way these people treat themselves and their bodies. It's almost as if you support self destruction when you support them. I'm sure a lot has changed since the days of Randy the The Ram but still.

Planet B-Boy: A 2007 documentary on The Battle of the Year, b-boying, aka break-dancing's, International stage. It follows the stories of some of the young men from Korea, Japan, France and America who partake in the world competition held in Munich. The feelings about dance expressed are so spiritual and so soulful, they will inspire you. It inspired me, but I'm pretty biased given dance is a passion of mine. Nothing too raw or rough around the edges with this documentary. Instead you'll watch an outpouring of passion, soul, thoughtfulness, pride, will and honor. Here are a two of my favorite quotes from guys representing Korea and Japan respectively: "I am not dancing to make money, I want to make money to dance," "The reason I dance is to explode and feel free." 

The Future of Food: A horrifying 2004 documentary on the genetic engineering of food. It will make you angry, it will frighten you to eat certain foods and it might even be the thing effects you so much you promise to only buy all natural and change where you grocery shop forever more. I had NO IDEA what was going on with agriculture, food, science, corporate America, greed, politics and cover up that affects this issue. We have no clue what we are putting in our bodies, scientists have no clue what the long term effects are and researchers have no means to find out. It's a horrible, screwed up system that is sure to make you question just how messed up the world must really be.