Before I die I want to buy a tiger.

Ok not really, what would I do with it? Sure it’ll give me some street cred especially if the tiger’s wearing a diamond encrusted collar and I’m walking all nonchalantly in the streets of the city.

This was an inscription on an Urban Art project entitled “Before I die I want to________”. It originated in New Orleans, where Candy Chang converted a wall of an abandoned house into an urban art piece.

It’s a very simple idea. It gives bypassers time to reflect on their lives and share their personal aspirations in public space. The side of the house was converted into a giant chalkboard, stenciled in the sentence: “Before I die I want to ________” .The wall turned a neglected space into a constructive one where we can restore perspective and understand our fellow man in new and enlightening ways.

The project blew up in ways never expected and people’s hopes and dreams have ranged from the funny to the poignant: Before I die I want to… sing for millions, see my daughter graduate, eat a salad with an alien, straddle the International Date Line, see the leaves change many times, be someone’s cavalry, hike the Appalachian Trail, cook a souffle, black out in a foreign country, help numerous children, hold her one more time, love and be loved, abandon all insecurities, be completely myself.”

This project has expanded to all corners of the earth from the Netherlands, Mexico, Australia, Portugal, Kazakhstan, even to our own South Africa(http://beforeidie.cc/walls/johannesburg-south-africa.html). The project is growing every day and together we can make public spaces that better reflect what matters to a community and individuals.

Have a look on the website( http://beforeidie.cc/).  Maybe start your own wall?




Before

 


Writing is on the wall

Blank canvass

Add some Chalk




Individual (s) street artists into the mix

Opinions



 

Dreams





Hopes

Ideas



End Result




Before I die in JHB :P









LOLs

Laughter.

Isn't it a beautiful sound? And it means so many different things to different people. I love a good laugh, and if I had to classify my sense of humour, I suppose it would be combination  of dry and dark.

However people disagree on what's funny.

For the life of me I will never understand why people enjoy watching Jackass?! It's a bunch of nitwits just hurting each other and themselves. I'm sure this "Jackass" idea was conceived, one summer afternoon. The guys were probably very high or drunk (or both). Reality checked in, they realised that they don't have anything really going for them.No real skills, talents or education, but they have a penis and a Blowtorch, so let's set it on fire, make a video and send it to MTV. This probably falls into slapstick comedy.

I have nipples & clothing pins!

So I did some research into the different sense of humours you get. So here goes.

1.) Slapstick:

Physical humor. Lots of pratfalls, falling, being hit on the head, etc. The term actually comes from the prop that actors used to hit each other with. It made a loud noise, but was hardly felt. Charlie Chaplin, started it, the idiots at Jackass made it what it is today.


2.) Dry humor

Its that deadpan, straightfaced style of humor. It's the not-very-funny joke your uncle the accountant tells. It's funny without trying to be funny. It's shows like Arrested Development, Flight of the Conchords, Black Books.


3.) Farce

Exaggerated comedy. Characters in a farce get themselves in an unlikely or improbable situation that takes a lot of footwork and fast talking to get out of. Basically any Steve Carrell or Michael Cera movie and shows like 30 Rock.

4.) Dark

Humor about the gross, violent, and otherwise depressing things in life; also called Black Comedy. People who work in emergency response: police, fire fighters, have great dark humor. Most of the time the victim is the source of the comedy. Beetlejuice, Bad Santa etc.

5.) Screwball

Humor based on a misunderstanding, such as mistaken identities, taking an overhead piece of conversation out of context, etc. Screwball comedies usually involve sex or marriage as well. It's movies like 'Meet the Parents', and all those  millions of nameless college movies. It's also my least favorite type of comedy

6.) Parody

People often confuse this with satire, but the two are completely different. Parody mocks or makes fun of an original work. Saturday Night Live often parodies movies and TV shows. Those funny movie titles you come up with based on original movie titles ("Shaving Ryan's Privates") are parodies. They also stop being funny after about the fifth or sixth one.

7.) Satire

Satire is basically making fun of or ridiculing human follies and shortcomings, hopefully in the hopes of causing improvement. Satire is often meant to be funny, but that's not the purpose of it. It's shows like The Office, Parks and Recreation that falls into this category.

8.) Toilet Humour

No explanation needed. Bowels movements, fart jokes. Having a bowel movement whilst thinking it was a fart. There is your joke.

And one of my greatest forms of entertainment.The website 9 gag (http://9gag.com/) I bid you adieu with one of my favourite memes "Bad Luck Brian"