heartstrings

this short story was a great quick read and gave me all the feelings

"When I'm Gone" (entire story here)
In this short story by Rafael Zoehler, a father who dies at 27 wrote his son a series of letters to be opened at several of life's milestones, including WHEN YOU HAVE YOUR FIRST KISS, WHEN YOU BECOME A FATHER, and WHEN YOUR MOTHER IS GONE.

This letter was entitled "WHEN I'M GONE":

Son,
If you're reading this, I'm dead. I'm sorry. I knew I was going to die.

I didn't want to tell you what was going to happen, I didn't want to see you crying. Well, it looks like I've made it. I think that a man who's about to die has the right to act a little bit selfish.

Well, as you can see, I still have a lot to teach you. After all, you don't know crap about anything. So I wrote these letters for you. You must not open them before the right moment, OK? This is our deal.

I love you. Take care of your mom. You're the man of the house now.

Love, dad.

PS: I didn't write letters to your mom. She's got my car.

Taken from kottke.org

Naomi Okubo

i'm hypnotized by the bright colors and patterns on patterns.  and i'm haunted and thoughtful about her description of the influence behind her work. 

I’ve always cared about appearances.

The ideas for my work come from an inferiority complex and my experiences in adolescence. As an adolescent, everyone starts to care about how other people think of their appearances.

In my personal experiences, when I changed my own image, people changed their attitude toward me. they started to concern me, and our relationship became better. I also realized the power of fashion and the fear of other’s watchful eyes. I have been interested in appearances ever since.

In Tokyo, Japan, where I live, and in other developed nations, mass media provides us not only with images of created appearances, but also images of lifestyles and ways of spending our time.

We admire these images, and adopt them to create our own images, but we are overly exposed and consume these images so much, that we become confused about what is real and what is contrived. The consequence is that we become addicted to them.

Although it seems like a personal issue, it is connected to greater problems and inconsistencies in society.

In my work, I want to show my thoughts on these problems and inconsistencies taken from my personal experiences.

http://nyaooon.jimdo.com/works/