The best thing about Twitter: self entertainment.

When I tweet, I am perfectly aware that I am talking to myself. Afterall, it is so transient, as opposed to say, blogging, which is not as transient.

Someone could somehow overhear my conversation with myself on Twitter and converse with me in another fleeting tweet.

It may also be that my tweet went completely unnoticed and unread, sinking into the bits and bytes of cyber wordyard.

This year’s Sunny Art Fair blew me away.

I really enjoyed last year’s Sunny Art Fair, so when I went last night to check out this year’s event, I went with very high expectations. Imagine my pleasure at being so pleasantly surprised, especially in Amman, where things usually get worse rather than better.

The 2010 Sunny Art Fair is mature in all sense of the word. When they first launched their website, I was surprised by their sophisticated branding, given my previous experience with their last event. I mean, the 2009 fair was awesome, but most of the artwork on display was not exactly the crème de la crème of creativity; it was an honest representation of the state of our city. Growing, yes, indeed, but still young, uncomfortable, and amateur.  

This year it was bold, full of character, and alive.

By no means do I think that Amman has managed to grow in a year’s span as much the Sunny Art Fair has grown (and you can see that from this debate which happened on Twitter last night: @Humeid, @Tarawnah, @RobaAssi, @SaeedOmar). In fact, the maturity of the fair has managed to outrun Amman by quite a few years. I’m definitely not saying that that is a bad thing, as such occurrences push our city’s conservative, unyielding, and excessively comfortable boundaries a little further.

Even cities need pushing every once in a while :)

The most impressive aspect of the 2011 art fair is the curation (I have been told that the kudos go to Abeer Seikaly). It is different from anything else you would see in town. No cliches, no blind respect of tradition, and no consideration of local artistic taboos. I would not have even thought it possible to reject the conservative players that have been dominating the Jordanian art scene for the past 50 years.

The old guard is dying. Amman is waking up. Slowly. But finally.

I especially loved the bunnies.

Must visit.

Location: Zara Centre, Third Floor. Wadi Saqra.
Dates & Times: Weekdays on December 16th, 19th & 20th – 4pm to 10pm, and Weekend on December 17th & 18th – 12pm to 10pm.

The only phase in my life where I was actually into the music scene was in the mid-to-late 90′s, thanks to my addiction to reading tween magazines like Teen (RIP), Seventeen, Top of the Pops, Blissmag and Cosmogirl (RIP).

Punk was alive in the 90′s; Green Day, No Doubt (I almost had a heart attack last night when their hit ’98 single “Ex-Girlfriend” was played on TV), Limp Bizkit, The OffSpring, Jimmy Eat World, Blink 182.

I was tantalized by the lyrics, the ideas, the attitude. Thus came the pink hair, the black nail polish, the piercings (I had five pairs of piercings at 14), the yelling, the black tee’s, the sneakers, and the baggy cargo pants. I must say that it was a fun way to be a tween, as punk came with a reckless, nonchalant mentality, though I drove my poor mother crazy.

A scary picture of me at the dashing age of 14. I did look better, I promise, but digital cameras were still crap then :)

My punk rock phase heavily influenced my current understanding of counter-culture, and was a pivotal part in shaping the person I am today. The punk rock bands were my heroes, and they helped me learn more about rebellion, individualism, free thought, and discontent in the age before the World Wide Web. I would read about how these artists thought of “commercializing their work” as selling themselves cheap, and stuck to their own ideologies of how music should be.

But today it occurred to me as I was listening to The Offspring that shit, that really is just a phase, in all sense of the word. Most of these punk rock artists were in their 20′s in the late 90′s, and today, though they sing the same way, dress the same way, and talk about the same things, most of them are in their late 30′s and early 40′s. It just sucks to be stuck, doesn’t it?

Case in point, The Offspring:

A musician who did grow out of her tweens though is Gwen Stefani, an artist I still love, and who was sort of like a childhood idol to me.

Anyway, it is a very random post. What did you used to listen to when you were a tween? And did it influence who you are today?

Hahahaha.

Via XKCD

Hattip: Moose.

Google is finally getting better at things beyond their technology.

Here’s a really cool video of 2010 in review, all showcased inside Google technology :)

Great video, isn’t it? Brilliant on several levels.

It was a weird year, wasn’t it?

I have been thinking a lot about the little things that my parents have taught me over the years. My parents were never the typical parents when it came to discipline. They always lets us decide for our own what is right from what is wrong, even when we were really young.

I thought I’d share some of these lessons every now and then.

One: On Taking Things Personally

You should never take criticism, or anything else for that matter, personally. EVER.

Criticism stems from two things:

1. You either deserve the criticism, in which case you should act to fix the issue rather than be offended.

2. The person being personally offensive has problems of his or her own; lack of self-confidence, personal issues, or anything similar that makes him or her direct personal frustration towards you. In this case, it is better to try to help the person overcome his or her own issues than be stupidly offended.

If you think of criticism like that, you increase your self-confidence, allow yourself to grow, as well as help others when possible.

Our lack of annoying sensitivity is one of my favorite things about my family, and I know that that stems from this mentality which my parents have ingrained in us from such a young age.

How do you handle criticism?