Repetition

A phenomenal video that everyone should watch. Phil Kaye's performance of "Repetition:"

Behind the Name

“Seconds Flat:” a name that I almost want to leave standing on its own so that whatever vision creeps into the reader’s mind is exactly what it’s supposed to mean. However, the need to present my intended purpose is just as pressing.

It started with lines from a Beatles song: “Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head, found my way downstairs and drank a cup, and looking up, I noticed I was late. Found my coat and grabbed my hat, made the bus in seconds flat.” To me, the lyrics paint a picture of the constant chaos that is life. In fact, the very title of the song, “A Day in the Life,” seems to speak to that. We’re born into a rushed world, a world where we are shuffled and spun from one moment to the next and can barely grab hold of the seconds that slip by us.

It is a world that shows no mercy for pause.

But there are times when my little sister can feel like her world is pieced together by nothing but pauses. Pauses that are foreign to an unfamiliar ear, pauses that are absent of the voice that is expected. Pauses that sound like seconds flat.

And so the name is given another meaning. My little sister is 15 years old, hilarious, and possesses a deeply caring heart. She is also a person who stutters. I want to share her story, and the story of people who stutter everywhere. I want to be a connection between people without much information and those who have mountains to share. I want to make sure every second is measured by love and not impatience. I want to tell you about seconds flat.

"Waste Land"

(Note: Unrelated to stuttering, but still important!)

“It’s not a pretty place… unless you look from far away.”

These were the words spoken by Vic Muniz in the film “Waste Land” as he looked out over the landscape of Rio de Janeiro. Though the Brazilian city is famous for its vacation paradises, it is also home to Jardim Gramacho, one of the largest garbage disposal sites in the world. Muniz set out on a mission to spend time there, learn about the people, and embark on another one of his creative projects that combine art and social issues.

While watching the stories of the people living there unfold, I began to feel more and more attached to them and their futures. I started to root for the pickers, who earn their living by collecting recyclables from the waste. I cried for the 18-year-old mother of two who threw up after seeing a dead child in the heaps of trash. I respected the choice that people made to work there, over prostitution or starvation, despite the difficulties and hardship that came with it.

These people live with rats while I watched them from a flat-screen TV inside the library of a school that is offering me an education that most of them could only dream of. I watched men pick up books out of the trash like treasure, while the shelves of literature surrounding me only solidified the message that was pouring from each story shown: I do not appreciate all that I have. And beyond that- I am naïve to what most of the world lacks.

I finished the film feeling motivated to change that, in every way possible. I need to appreciate and utilize all the opportunities that I have; I must educate myself on the situations of others. There are countless places that look pretty from far away. Now is the time to start looking closer.

(To watch the film, search for “Waste Land” in your Netflix instant queue)