International Honors Program, Cities in the 21st Century 2009, originally uploaded by Aaron Michael Brown.
Okay, so I'm totally smitten with the art of photography, but after spending time over the last year or so browsing Vimeo, I'm really starting to get drawn to the medium of video. Check out these videos I found of the cities that I've visited; it takes me back to Sao Paulo in ways that even my best photos of Diadema could never even touch.
Urban Age :: São Paulo Film from OutrosFilmes on Vimeo.
A Question from Rowan on Vimeo.
Hanoi crazy night traffic from v!Nc3sl4s on Vimeo.
Oh, and tonight's my last night with my host family here in Hanoi. We leave for a retreat for the next week, and by next friday I'll be on a plane heading east once again, this time over the pacific ocean and back towards the united states. This blog started off in earnest in January as a vehicle for me to get in touch with people back home, organize my thoughts, and attempt to write poetically about urbanity and my travels. I would say that my travels are about to end, what with my impending flight back home and my upcoming move-in to a dorm back on campus for the summer (woo free housing!), but to be a pretentious prick about it, I hope that I'm never finished "travelling" or ever done with keeping an eye open to my surroundings and finding things to write about. I know this blog got a bit sloppy here and there over the past few months, and that it was difficult to write effectively and intelligently when there were so many better things to be doing (like seeing penguins in Cape Town!), and I feel like I definitely lost my focus on what I wanted to write. My professor read most of these entries and went so far as to say I was a bit "undisciplined," but that's what I get for not actually keeping this journal on the topics that the original assignment required. Nonetheless, I'm thinking I'm going to keep this blog running, post-IHP, just as an opportunity to keep my soapbox around, should the desire come about to air our some grievances, post some photos, and ruminate on midwest and cascadian urbanity. My entries from Brazil (particularly those in Sao Paulo) make me homesick for the congestion, chaos, insanity and intensity of Rua da Consolação, and I've decided its not enough to just take photos of my meanderings without attempting to coherently piece together whatever it is I'm thinking about. WIth over 400 unique visitors to my blog, and over 1000 page views, I guess someone somewhere likes what I'm doing, so I'll keep it up.
My summer stands to be pretty interesting; I'll be doing a project on the Midtown Greenway in Minneapolis, and perhaps this blog will help chronicle the stories of an undergrad way over his head in the world of socially-minded academic research. I'm also hoping to do some serious roadtripping around the upper midwest this summer, and since the horizon of the end of 2009 brings possibilities of stories of extended time on student government, potentially hammering out an honors thesis, taking a 200-level biology class (why the hell did I sign up for that?!) and all the other drama that waits in the wings, it'll be fun to blog about all of it. There's "Contested Urban Space" in every city, and perhaps I'll find some neighborhoods in Minneapolis worth writing about this summer. Plus, by blogging, I can make a statement against using the asinine piece of idiocy that is twitter.
Meanwhile, I've got about a week until I get back to Portland, and since I've posted Vimeos of the three cities I've lived in, I'll post one more as to what I'm looking forward to upon my jetlagged return to the City of Roses.
My Pretty Portland from The FREELS Brothers on Vimeo.
New York, New York, USA - Jan 19 to Jan 29
São Paulo and Curitibas, Brazil Jan 30 to Mar 4
Cape Town, South Africa Mar 5 to Apr 10
Hanoi, Vietnam Apr 11 to May 15th
Portland, Orygun May 15th to May 23rd
Saint Paul, Minnesota May 23rd through August
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