OOOOOOORRRRRRRBBBBBBBSSSSSSSSSS part 2

Orbs Love Rock

This isn't an opinion. Its a fact. Orbs love the rock. After learning about the ECs, I went back into some of my pictures and realized that at least 6 or seven years before they had shown up in photos of a couple of concerts. These first three photos are from the legendary Troy Westfield Experience's final concert on 42nd st, during what I think was a fund raiser for the NTUSA at one of Chashama's theaters (the whole block is now a bank, but for a time, artist were running the block). Above you see me belting with a rather large orb in the upper left. Now, I concede this could be a stage light, but it really matches the orb profile.

This one is the least obvious , but I'm pretty sure there are some orbs in the upper left. I'm busy in this shot summoning the fire out of Stevey D's guitar.

This one I find the most peculiar. If you go back to the Ooorrbbss part one, you'll recall Nancy Burson, Extra Celestial spokeswoman. Her website not only features lots of light spheres, there are also many images of more humanoid figures who manifest as tall light beings or in clouds of smoke. I never realized this before, but that cloud of smoke to my left looks an awful lot like a giant skull, a typical EC manifestation. Whatayathink?

These next 4 are from a concert a few years later, starring the hard hitting 80's glam rock cover band Rok Goddington. Again, this is years before I knew about orbs, but I think you'll find the EC's presence in these images much more pronounced. Also, I realize that the snaps from above are film, while the ones below were digital, so that may be another factor.

Cock, Spock, and Lox Goddington jamming on the one with a band of orbs . Even ECs are nostalgic for 80s hair metal, apparently. The orbs kind of look like cartoon intoxication bubbles in this photo which, if I remember correctly, would be extremely, let's say...accurate for this show

Yours truly pointing to a guitar as Vox Goddington, big ole orb looking on. That's the singer's job on stage, to point to where the guitars are, in case the audience can't find them. I've noticed I get lots of orbs near my head for some reason.


You'll notice if you look closely that there seems to be some kind of face in this one. I might also note this guy appears near an image of a bird with a halo, so we're kind of channeling the holy spirit as a reinforcing synchronistic symbol.

A little EC hanging near one of my rok-gloves. Small but very bright. You'll notice a stage light behind Spock -- I bring it up just as a comparison, they look quite different from an orb.

A seemingly serene moment of roking

Cock and Spock on the job, probably singing some Judas Priest, orbs just below Spock's bass.

The ECs showing up during rock shows seems fairly plausible, as we are creating ecstatic states of vibration through sound, a building block of matter. In the beginning was the word, as they say. Plus, as we all know, rock is awesome, so why wouldn't they want a part of our good time? The orbs know what is important. Rok is our church. Let us pray.

Stay tuned for Oooooorrrrrbbbbbssssss part 3, ooooorrrbbbsss iiiiiin ssssppaaaaaaaaaaaaace!

OOOOOOORRRRRRRBBBBBBBSSSSSSSSSS part 1

Hello. I am feeling a little depressed and out of sorts today. I am not sleeping normally -- lately I have been working or making art all night and sleeping all day, still adjusting to being in San Francisco without a real regular schedule, and though I didn't work last night, I meditated a lot and tried to sleep, alas, to no avail. I need a little cheering up. So......

It is time.

For.

OOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRBBBBBBBBBBBSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! part 1.

Frank's folk's orb farm in Herkimer, NY (I'll explain later)--click to enlarge this image, its worth it!

That's right, folks, orbs. Also known as extra celestials, these little balls of light have been popping up in photographs worldwide -- often suspected to be a trick of light or dirt on the lens, or the result of some kind of malfunction of the digital camera. But we in the know are aware that those explanations are all bullshit, and that orbs are some kind of other dimensional entities that like us humans and our earth, and are, well, living with us day to day, just outside of our visual perception range. And they like us, I swear it. I've even seen one with a little smiley face sticking out of it.

I first learned about the orbs while I was taking a meditation class, and an older woman from the class offered to take me to a lecture held by Nancy Burson, an NYC artist and spiritualist who talks about her experiences with the orbs (she calls them Extra Celestials -- I will probably alternate referring to them as orbs or ECs throughout this post). I believe the ECs began to visit her after she entered a crop circle in England. She has developed a real relationship with them and now considers herself to be their emissary. During her lectures she also breaks out a little glow in the dark statue of Mother Mary that dances when she turns off the lights and plays spiritual, beat-ladened music. I don't remember seeing any orbs during this lecture, but I did soon thereafter begin to photograph them:

click to enlarge. Steal these pictures and enlarge them even more. orbs are cool looking!

Within a week or so of the lecture, I was painting a mural on 38th st and 8th ave in NYC, and upon photographing the image for my files (the mural had to be painted in a weekend, I chose the image of a root chakra as a grounding, healing image for passersby) I found that the pictures had picked up some ECs around the front of the building.

The one just below is particularly amazing, probably the brightest orb I've ever photographed.

It seems that if you are exposed to the ECs you will most likely start finding them in your photos, so if you read this orb series of posts, start to look through your photos and you will realize you have been posing for pictures with invisible friends!

Nancy says these are higher dimensional light beings who are here to assist humanity in our enlightenment. They are very happy little fellers. I tend to agree with her assessment. She says if you call to the ECs they will come and help you out with whatever might be ailin' ye. So maybe give it a try and see what happens.

Consequently, relating this back to Nancy's experience of the ECs with the crop circle, often bright balls of light are seen hovering over fields just before or during the making of crop circles. Are the ECs making the circles? A potential connection between the two phenomenon are the geometries that exist inside both the orbs and circles. If you look closely at some of these photos, you may see some very intricate geometries lying inside of them.

For example:

Perhaps a year or two later, I went to another Nancy Burson lecture, and some of her "friends" were photographed hanging with us afterwards (look closely):
I think it might be important to mention here that the orbs, to me, appear to have depth to them. Or more specifically, they seem to be portals or tunnels, as if you could dive into them.

For example:

The reason I point this out is because I think the orbs are illustrating an important quantum idea. It seems to me that source energy, god energy, consciousness, emanates from every atom, from every point in the "material" world. Being that energy is never created nor destroyed, perhaps energies are transferred from point to point through vortexes, (essentially a portal or tunnel that has torsion, or spin.) Perhaps these ECs travel by creating their own portals, by turning themselves into vortexes, and then teleporting from place to place, dimension to dimension, through themselves.

I bring this up for two reasons: 1. My out-of-body experience (the "first dream," the reason this blog exists, which can be read here), where I witnessed a giant vortex made of light that spoke to me, meaning it was conscious. 2. A friend of a friend whom I met at the last Nancy Burson event, who described seeing a giant energetic portal in Central Park in NYC some years earlier. Essentially, I think these orbs are individuated, living vortexes of light. They are conscious energy centers, just floating all around us. But for some reason, we can't see them. Yet, the digital camera CAN. So the question begs to be asked: Are the cameras just making them up? It is possible they are some sort of digital anomaly, but I really don't buy that. I think the cameras are doing what they are designed to do: reproducing images of what is actually there. They are literally photographing glowing objects that exist in the way a tree or a car exists. This same phenomena manifests with photographs of spirits, ufos, etc. We as humans are either psychologically blocked against seeing them, or the camera has a wider visual spectrum than the human eye. The camera can't just invent an orb, right? Right?

So what the heck is goin on here?

Stay tuned for oooooorrrrrrrrbbbbbbbbbbsssssssss 2!

Two Totally Unrelated Things that Go Great Together

I'm posting at an exponentially faster rate. Unemployment is good for that. So while I have the time, here are two completely unrelated things that I thought might entertain you, as well as have some sort of significance in the strange and winding career that belongs to Phil Ristaino.

First, we have a video conceived and created by NTUSA members and Flackman Bros associates Ryan Bronze and Matt Kalman (aka Max Flackman). I agreed to participate in the making of this short Christmas video starring Ryan as Spiderman and Matt as Batman, surf buddies, and featuring the cheese-center-filled rock classic "Come Sail Away" by Styx, particularly significant to me because they were my favorite band (other than, say, the Beatles) when I was a youth (pronounced "yout" minus the "h"). I worked the camera for much of the shoot, in between sneezing profoundly, as the fall pollen had descended on Far Rockaway Beach on the outskirts of Queens or Brooklyn or somewhere in between and caused my nasal passages much dismay. Later in the shoot, myself and another actor Greg (last name slipping my mind right now, sorry Greg) posed as 60's style masked baddies, attacking the two heroes on amidst their holiday and being summarily dismissed by the crime fighting professionals.
Cheque eet owt:




It may be significant to note that Matt and Ryan went into cold New York autumn ocean waters fully costumed and both nearly drowned during the shooting of this video. If you look hard, you'll see one or two waves really kicking their asses, which, I admit, was pretty funny to watch in person.

The second part of this post is dedicated to me Ole Da, who hit the big 7-0 this October (happy birthday, DAD!) My older brother Carl opted to get my folks a new dish washer for Dad's b-day, and I was assigned with the task of creating the card for the gift.

Take a look:


Here's the inside:

Editor's note: Brother Carl's and his daughter Izzy's signatures and notes are missing from the card because I put all the other notes together in photoshop and express mailed the card to Carl for him to sign in time for the delivery of the dishwasher.

Just as an explanation, my parents have a house on a lake in Maine, and there is a family of bald eagles on the island, so I figured I'd put dad on the eagle a la Gandalf in the third LOTR film:

Dad's body is more or less a steal from a Jack Kirby silver surfer:


And here's me Dad:

Dad trippin balls

So there you have it. Two great things that have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Posting as an excuse to be creative... or BRAINS!

In honor of my brain-dead state today (just shot a spec commercial for doritos, where I spent 16 hours wrestling an invisible man for coveted corn chips, my body is still killing me two days later) I am posting photos from an old play from the early aughts or maybe even late 1999, (can't remember and don't care)(editors note: it was actually 1999, dummy!). This play I speak of was called Brains!, directed by fellow Skidmore College alum Yehuda Duenyas, and co-created and starring yours truly and actors extraordinaire James Stanley and Jessie Hawley (the latter also from Skidmore). These three performers are the core of the National Theater of the United States of America, an NYC based company who create epic original absurdities for the stage.

Hoody (Yehuda) describes this show on his website as, "a particle physics zombie show that premiered at Walker Space in 1999." This is pretty much true -- it was a movement intensive show, discussing particle physics, out of body experiences and framed in the scenario of three people trapped in a house with the imminent threat of a horde of zombies. Good, clean fun.

Consequently, if you go to Hoody's website, you can see these images as a slide show, y'know, just fer shits and giggles. Or you can look below (click on images to enlarge):

Me, Jessie, James, Hoody

While I'm At It...Start Trekkin NY at NY comicon 2009

Here's a fun series of videos. Taken with a friend's phone, these two performances from the 2009 NY Comicon were only able to be filmed one minute at a time (that's how long her phone could take videos). So what you are seeing are the bits of both performances that made it to digital documentation. Some fun bits in there - I am typically over the top. Good luck adding in the rest of the story you aren't getting here...think of it as a fun project, where you can make up your own stories and transitions to fill in the blanks.

Here ya go:

PhilRistaino.blogspot.com/Cafe Antarsia

New Stuff!

Well, not really. I've recently rediscovered this footage from a play I performed in called Cafe Antarsia. It was a musical of sorts, more of a play with music, complete with middle eastern musicians and score. The theme of the show was essentially the occupation of Turkey on an island in Greece near the turn of the twentieth century. (Can you believe we live in the 21st century? I never really considered that until now. Whoa....)




I play Kariogiosis (spelled something like that), the half Greek, half Turkish weasel who sort of inspires unrest and keeps the peace in sly ways, always to further his own survival. That's me with the red fez running around and yelling in the strange, poetic dialogue the playwright invented. This might be the first footage I've found that demonstrates what its really like to do physical performance art. This show was directed by fellow Skidmore alum and old pal Ian Belton, and performed at the Here Arts Center in NYC circa 2005. I believe Cafe Antarsia the band is still a going concern, and you can find out more about them here.

I also want to encourage whomever stumbles upon this blog to check out my new website of sorts, PhilRistaino.blogspot.com. This is my attempt to begin to organize and catalogue my various art forms into a more accessible clump or clumps. Funny enough, I find in some ways by assembling whatever I can from the past, I'm still only scratching the surface of past works, and really wish there was much more documentation of all the plays I performed in over the last 15 years or so. Oh well, theater has always been what I consider the most ephemeral of art forms....

Laurellefe makes fairy magic in the park

I thought I had lost these images when my external hard drive bit the dust, but thankfully I was wrong.

One day, the lovely Laurelle Rethke and myself took some photos in a park on the river on the west side of NYC somewhere around 55th st (maybe 57th?). I took the images and turned them into some surreal scenes to enhance the fairy magic that Laurellefe (her fairy name) seems to conjure as she wanders across the city that lost its soul. So, she's, like, giving it the soul back. Cause she's a woodland creature, right? A magic fairy princess...ok, I'll shut up, but trust me, its true. She talks to rocks.

Click to enlarge:I even turned one of the images into an album cover for the Beatles "Love" copy I ripped for my sister: Consequently, my name meaning "love," you could say that the album is called The Beatles "Phil."

But you wouldn't say that, would you?